By Fred Imbert, CNBC–

  • Stocks fell on Wednesday as the corporate earnings season rolled on with companies like CSX and Bank of America releasing their quarterly numbers.
  • The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 115.7 points, or 0.42%. The S&P 500 slid 0.65% to 2,984.42. The Nasdaq Composite closed 0.46% lower at 8,185.21.

U.S. stock index futures were slightly lower Thursday morning as earnings season gathers momentum.

At around 2:30 a.m. ET, Dow futures were down 75 points and indicated an implied negative open of more than 52 points, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq also pointed to lower opens.

Stocks closed at the day’s lows Wednesday after the Wall Street Journal reported that trade negotiations between the U.S. and China had faltered over restrictions on Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei, citing sources familiar with the talks.

This came after President Trump on Tuesday made skeptical comments about the possibility of an imminent resolution to the ongoing trade war between the world’s two largest economies.

As earnings season kicks into full gear, Railroad giant CSX posted weaker-than-forecast quarterly results on Wednesday, sending its stock plummeting, while Bank of America reported better-than-expected earnings but warned that lower rates would hit its net interest income growth.

Both United Airlines and Cintas also beat expectations, indicating that the bleak outlook offered at the beginning of earnings season might have been overly pessimistic. However, only around 7% of S&P 500 companies have reported second-quarter earnings thus far, according to FactSet data.

Another flurry of earnings is due Thursday, with Morgan Stanley, Union Pacific, SunTrust and M&T Bank reporting before the bell, while Microsoft is set to report after the bell.

– CNBC’s Fred Imbert contributed to this report.

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