Stock Market Update

[BRIEFING.COM] The stock market opened to mixed action at the index level as investors digest influential earnings news. The Nasdaq Composite and S&P 500 trade around their prior closing levels, the Dow Jones Industrial Average sports a 0.3% gain, and the Russell 2000 is down 0.1% from yesterday.

Impressive quarterly results and commentary from Alphabet (GOOG 180.74, +9.71, +5.6%) headlined the earnings news. Eli Lilly (LLY 785.52, -118.09, -13.0%) and Dow component Visa (V 291.19, +9.31, +3.3%) were also among the influential names that reported results.

The communication services sector leads the S&P 500, up 2.4% thanks to its mega cap constituents. The heavily-weighted financial sector (+0.9%) is the next best performer. Meanwhile, the health care sector shows a 1.2% decline due to LLY shares.

Pending home sales rose 7.4% in September (Briefing.com consensus 2.5%) following a 0.6% increase in August.