Overnight Markets: Wall Street closes mixed on disappointing earnings

Wall Street closed mixed on Tuesday as disappointing earnings reports from Kimberly-Clark Corp. to U.S. Steel Corp. overshadowed higher-than-estimated consumer confidence.

The Dow Jones industrial average gained five points, or 0.05%, to 11,169. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index remained flat at 1,186. The Nasdaq Composite Index gained six points, or 0.26%, to 2,497.

US stocks declined, led by consumer-staples companies, after Kimberly-Clark lost 5.8% as profit dropped amid higher costs for materials. United States Steel plunged 3.4% in response to a surprise quarterly loss.

However, indexes recovered from their lows after the Conference Board’s confidence index increased to 50.2 from a revised 48.6 in September. In a separate report, the Federal Housing Finance Agency said that home prices surged 0.4% in August, defying economists’ median forecast for a decrease and overshadowing an S&P/CaseShiller index showing prices in 20 cities decreased from July.

Elsewhere, I.B.M. gained 0.6% after its board authorised buying back as much as $10 billion in shares.  Texas Instruments fell 10 cents to $28.88 after forecasting fourth-quarter revenue of $3.36 billion to $3.64 billion and citing a slowdown in consumer-electronics spending.

U.S. Steel declined 3.4% after declaring a surprise third- quarter loss. Ford Motor rose 1.5% after reporting record third-quarter net income of $1.69 billion.

In current trading, Japanese stocks climbed on Wednesday after the yen retreated from a 15-year high against the dollar, allaying fears that export earnings will decline.

The Nikkei 225 Stock Average rose 0.6% to 9,431 as of 10:02 a.m. in Tokyo. The broader Topix index climbed 0.4% to 821.  Among other indexes, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index was trading 0.1% higher at 23,633. Shanghai Composite Index was up 0.2% at 3,047, while Australia’s ASX All Ordinaries Index was down 0.1% at 4,755.