(MENAFN- AFP) Oil giant Chevron, beer titan AB Inbev and China's Baidu buoyed an otherwise feeble Wall Street in early trade Friday as all three handily beat third quarter earnings forecasts.
Baidu, China's answer to Google, surged 8.4 percent despite a slump in profit as earnings per share came in 12 percent over expectations and the company said it expects a new travel services partnership to help drive future revenue.
Shares overall were weaker. An hour into trade, the Dow Jones Industrial index was down 9.43 points (0.05 percent) to 17,746.37.
The broad-based S&P 500 lost 2.68 (0.13 percent) to 2,086.73, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index added 3.49 (0.07 percent) at 5,077.77.
Chevron gained 0.5 percent as core earnings per share came in over analyst forecasts despite an overall 63.6 percent plunge in earnings to $2.04 billion due to the oil price crash.
Rival ExxonMobil also beat expectations on per-share earnings despite a plunge overall, and its shares added just 0.1 percent.
Anheuser-Busch Inbev, poised to take over rival SAB Miller in a mega-merger, was up 1.4 percent as it reported operating profit rose by 9.6 percent in the third quarter to $4.4 billion.
Pfizer fell again, down 1.0 percent, as analysts began looking at its negotiations to take over Allergan (+3.2 percent) to lower its tax burden by relocating to Allergan's Ireland headquarters. If the deal goes ahead, it could create the world's largest drug company, worth more than $300 billion.
Embattled Canadian drugmaker Valeant sank another 6.5 percent as it was forced to cut ties with mail-order pharmacy Philidor, which had accounted for a significant amount of its business.
Bond prices rose. The yield on the 10-year US Treasury fell to 2.16 percent from 2.18 percent Thursday, while the 30-year dropped to 2.94 percent from 2.96 percent. Bond prices and yields move inversely.
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