NEW YORK (Reuters) – Wall Street dropped on Tuesday as concerns over Spain and Greece weighed on the market and a round of disappointing profit outlooks highlighted the effect of the euro zone debt crisis on corporate earnings.
United Parcel Service , seen by many as a proxy for economic activity, reported quarterly results that missed forecasts and cut its 2012 outlook, citing uncertain global economic conditions. The shares fell 5.1 percent to $74, pulling the Dow Jones Transportation average down 1.6 percent.
ATT Inc lost 2.7 percent to $34.43 after the company pulled back its outlook for business services this year despite its better-than-expected quarterly profit. The SP telecom index dropped 2.1 percent as the worst performing SP sector.
“We are going through an adjustment period where there has been a lot of talk about Europe facing a recession in 2012, now we are actually seeing it in the earnings and the market is reacting to that,” said Gail Dudack, chief investment strategist at Dudack Research Group in New York.
Whirlpool Corp slumped 6.4 percent to $62.98 after the world’s largest appliance maker missed Wall Street‘s expectations for quarterly earnings and sales, hurt by weak demand in Europe and a stronger dollar.
According to Thomson Reuters data through Tuesday morning, of the 145 companies in the SP 500 that have reported