US open: Stocks head south as Q3 earnings season begins

US stocks were lower at the bell on Tuesday as market participants digested some key corporate earnings and news of a pause in Johnson & Johnson's Covid-19 vaccine study.

As of 1520 BST, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.40% at 28,721.52, while the S&P 500 was 0.43% weaker at 3,519.19 and the Nasdaq Composite started out the session 0.25% softer at 11,846.27.

The Dow Jones opened 116.00 points lower on Tuesday, cutting into gains recorded in the previous session as stimulus talks remained in focus.

Tuesday's main focus will be the beginning of third-quarter earnings season, with several major US banks being the first cabs off the rank.

Investment manager Blackrock saw assets under management hit a new record in the third quarter of the year as a broad stock market rally helped the firm top both revenue and profit guidance, while banking giant Citigroup posted its largest quarterly profit of the Covid-19 pandemic as trading bonds afforded the firm another windfall.

JPMorgan Chase also recorded a 4% jump in third-quarter income thanks to the continued rebound in global financial markets.

Going the other way, Delta Air Lines posted a $5.4bn quarterly loss as the Covid-19 pandemic continued to ravage the travel industry, leading the group to warn it could take more than two years to recover from the outbreak.

AJ Bell's Russ Mould said: "Analysts' forecasts continue assume that the second quarter will prove to be the bottom and that aggregate profits will recover strongly from here. The updates for July to September and any management forecasts for the fourth quarter could therefore be crucial if the S&P 500, Dow Jones and Nasdaq are to maintain their strong run through to the end of the year – and where America goes, the rest of the globe tends to follow."

Elsewhere in the corporate space, Johnson & Johnson, which also posted earnings on Tuesday, revealed that it had paused its Covid-19 vaccine study after one of the trial's participants had come down with an "unexplained illness". The pharma giant did not make it immediately clear if the patient had been administered with a placebo or the experimental vaccine itself.

Amazon was in focus as its "Prime Day" event kicked off, while investors also had a keen eye trained on Apple ahead of an event later in the day where the tech behemoth was rumoured to be announcing its first 5G-enabled iPhone handset.

On the macro front, consumer price inflation rose as expected last month but was unchanged at the core level amid falling prices for apparel and transportation services. According to the Department of Labor, headline CPI advanced at a month-on-month clip of 0.2% in September, pushing the annual rate of increase from 1.3% in August to 1.4%, in line with expectations.

However, at the core level, which excludes food and energy prices, the year-on-year rate of change was steady at 1.7%, just shy of consensus estimates for a print of 1.8%.