At the halfway point of the trading day, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI +1.79%) was down 34 points (-0.26%) to 13,308. The S&P 500 (^GSPC +1.20%) was down four points (-0.27%) to 1,429.
Today's small drop follows Friday's plunge, which was triggered when General Electric, McDonald's, and Microsoft all missed earnings expectations. Earnings season is in full swing now, with giants Facebook, Apple, Amazon.com, and Hewlett-Packard all reporting earnings this week.
A few stocks are up today, shining through the Dow's gloom.
Today's Dow leaders
Today's Dow leader is Caterpillar (NYSE: CAT), up 1.47% ($1.23) to $85.09. Caterpillar reported earnings that beat analyst estimates this morning. The heavy-equipment manufacturer reported earnings of $2.54 per share, 50% greater than last year's $1.71 and better than analyst expectations of $2.22 per share. The company reported revenue of $16.45 billion, 4.5% above last year's $15.72 billion but below analyst expectations of $16.8 billion. Fool analyst John Maxfield sees three important takeaways from Caterpillars earnings. Click here for his take.
Second for the day is Bank of America (NYSE: BAC), up 0.95% ($0.09) to $9.53. Bank of America reported mediocre earnings on Thursday. However, the bank finally gave analysts guidance on how much it will likely lose from having to buy back soured loans. The figure of $6 billion is far rosier than scenarios analysts had been talking about. With the figure finally known, 5 Fool analysts recently gave their take on whether or not Bank of America is a buy. Click here to see what they had to say.
