NEW YORK, Oct. 25 (Xinhua) -- U.S. stocks slid in the morning session Wednesday as investors pondered over a string of earnings reports amid economic data.
By midday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 124.88 points, or 0.53 percent, to 23,316.88. The S&P 500 lost 19.63 points, or 0.76 percent, to 2,549.50. The Nasdaq Composite Index decreased 65.31 points, or 0.99 percent, to 6,533.12.
Before Wednesday's opening bell, the Coca-Cola Company announced third-quarter 2017 net income of 1.45 billion U.S. dollars, or 33 cents per share, up from 1.05 billion dollars, or 24 cents per share, for the same period a year ago.
Shares of the beverage company traded slightly higher around midday Wednesday after the firm's earnings beat forecasts.
Shares of the Boeing Company fell about 3 percent around midday Wednesday even though the maker of jetliners posted better-than-expected quarterly results.
The latest data from Thomson Reuters showed that the S&P 500 companies' blended earnings in the third quarter of 2017 are expected to rise 4.7 percent year on year, while the revenues are forecast to increase 4.5 percent.
On the economic front, U.S. new orders for manufactured durable goods in September increased 5.1 billion dollars or 2.2 percent to 238.7 billion dollars, well above market consensus of a 1.0-percent gain, the Commerce Department said Wednesday.
In a separate report, the department announced that U.S. sales of new single-family houses in September 2017 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 667,000, beating market estimates.
This is 18.9 percent above the revised August rate of 561,000 and is 17.0 percent above the September 2016 estimate of 570,000.
