Wall Street mixed with eyes on earnings

By Rodrigo Campos

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks were little changed on Monday after the S&P 500 hit a fresh intraday record high, boosted by gains in Apple after a bullish research note, while underwhelming results from McDonald's weighed on the Dow.

The S&P 500 on Friday capped its biggest weekly gain in three months on stronger-than-expected earnings from companies including Google and Morgan Stanley and as a deal in Washington helped avert a possible government default and reopened the federal government after a 16-day shutdown.

"It is positive that investors are focusing on company fundamentals" and not on political dealings in Washington, said Peter Jankovskis, co-chief investment officer at OakBrook Investments in Lisle, Illinois.

 

"The good news is we're returning to reactions that are stock specific," he said.

Apple led gains on the S&P 500 and Nasdaq after Societe Generale lifted its price target on the stock to $575 from $500 and advised clients to buy shares. The stock rose 2.3 percent to $520.82.

Shares of McDonald's fell 0.9 percent to $94.35, ranking the restaurant chain as the top point decliner in the Dow industrials. McDonald's reported revenue that missed estimates and warned global October sales could be relatively flat.

Other companies expected to report results on Monday include Netflix and Texas Instruments . More than 25 percent of the S&P 500 components are due to report this week.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 7.83 points or 0.05 percent, to 15,391.82, the S&P 500 gained 0.62 points or 0.04 percent, to 1,745.12 and the Nasdaq Composite added 11.153 points or 0.28 percent, to 3,925.431.

Hasbro , up 7.7 percent at $50.91, was one of the top performers on the S&P 500 after the toy maker topped Wall Street's profit estimates.

JPMorgan Chase & Co shares edged up after it reached a tentative $13 billion deal with the U.S. government to settle investigations into bad mortgage loans sold to investors by JPMorgan and the banks it bought during the financial crisis. Shares rose 0.4 percent to $54.51.

"A settlement of this size brings closure for many and it allows them to put the episode behind," said Andre Bakhos, managing director at Janlyn Capital LLC in Bernardsville, New Jersey.

Shares of Tellabs Inc rose 4 percent to $2.45 after the network services provider agreed to be taken private by Marlin Equity Partners for $891 million.

The market barely reacted to news that U.S. home resales fell in September and prices rose at their slowest pace in five months, in the latest signs higher mortgage rates were taking some edge off the housing market recovery.

Japan's exports rose but were well short of expectations in September, a sign that slowing demand in Asia was taking the shine off Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's stimulus policies and clouding the outlook for a recovery.

(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Kenneth Barry and Nick Zieminski)