Wall St struggles for direction ahead of mega cap earnings
Alphabet jumps to over three-month high
Eli Lilly misses weight-loss, diabetes drug estimates
AMD falls, weighing on chip stocks
Indexes: Dow up 0.19%, S&P 500 unchanged, Nasdaq down 0.09%
Updates at 2:20 p.m. ET (1820 GMT
By Abigail Summerville
Oct 30 (Reuters) - U.S. stock indexes were mixed on Wednesday, with the Dow gaining and the tech-heavy Nasdaq falling, as investors assessed a host of corporate earnings.
Shares of Alphabet GOOGL.O, the first of the five "Magnificent Seven" megacap stocks that report resultsthis week, rose 4.1% after the company beat expectations for third-quarter revenue and profit on strength in its cloud business and YouTube ad sales.
That helped to offset falling chip stocks, weighed by dour forecasts from Advanced Micro Devices AMD.O and Qorvo QRVO.O, which lost 9.9% and 26.5%,respectively.
Meanwhile, shares of Super Micro Computer SMCI.O plunged 32.7%after Ernst & Young resigned as the company's accountant. Nvidia NVDA.O was down 1.2%.
The Information Technology sector .SPLRCT was the biggest sectoral decliner, while Alphabet's gains lifted the CommunicationServices .SPLRCL sector.
“Qorvo, Advanced Micro and Super Micro - those are three pretty big moves that are causing a little bit of angst and taking some of the bloom off the rose from the stellar print from Google last night,” said Michael James, managing director of equity trading at Wedbush Securities.
"The clear laser focus is going to be on the stock specific reports and guides," James said.
By 2:20 p.m. ET (1820 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI rose 79.44 points, or 0.19%, to 42,312.49, the S&P 500 .SPX lost 0.21 points, or 0.00%, to 5,832.79 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC lost 17.40 points, or 0.09%, to 18,695.35.
In economic data, the U.S. gross domestic product increased at a 2.8% annualized rate, according to the Commerce Department's advance estimate of third-quarter GDP, slightly below economists' forecast of 3.0% growth.
A separate report showed U.S. private payrolls growth surged by a higher-than-expected 233,000 jobs in October.
The neck-and-neck race between U.S. presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump was also at the top of investors' minds ahead of the Nov. 5 election.
Traders anticipate a 25-basis-point rate cut in the Federal Reserve's November andDecember meetings.
Megacaps Microsoft MSFT.O and Meta Platforms META.O rose ahead of their scheduled resultsafter the bell, which are expectedto provide insight into whether heavy AI investment is translating into better company performances.
Starbucks SBUX.O is also set to report earnings after the close.
EliLilly LLY.N lost 8.8% after missing sales estimates for its popular weight-loss and diabetes drugs.
Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 1.44-to-1 ratio on the NYSE, and by a 1.09-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.
The S&P 500 posted 23 new 52-week highs and five new lows while the Nasdaq Composite recorded 117 new highs and 75 new lows.
Alphabet's cloud revenue growth accelerates on AI boom https://reut.rs/4hpeEwE
The Magnificent Seven https://reut.rs/4hpeHIQ
Reporting by Abigail Summerville
Editing by Marguerita Choy
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