Wall St slips as earnings disappoint

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks fell on Wednesday as tepid corporate earnings gave investors little reason to buy amid continuing concerns about the health of the global economy.

Discounter Target Corp posted uninspiring results, while BJ's Wholesale Club Inc missed profit estimates and cut its full-year forecast, sending shares in both companies lower.

Deere & Co earnings beat estimates, but said sales were "far below normal levels" and pointed to deteriorating conditions in Europe, where markets were "down sharply.

Deere fell 1.6 percent to $66.06, Target dropped 1.2 percent to $50.05, and BJ's Wholesale lost 4.6 percent to $41.33.

"The earning this morning are probably neutral to the negative in terms of impacting price," said Nick Kalivas, vice president of financial research & senior equity index analyst at MF Global in Chicago. "There is really no upside momentum from the earnings perspective on balance, and we just don't have the international dynamics here.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.DJI> dropped 54.49 points, or 0.52 percent, to 10,351.36. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.SPX> fell 4.85 points, or 0.44 percent, to 1,087.69. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.IXIC> lost 4.26 points, or 0.19 percent, to 2,205.18.

Energy shares fell as crude oil futures dropped more than 2 percent after an industry report showed a sharp increase in U.S. petroleum inventories. Chevron Corp dropped 1.4 percent to $76.65 and Exxon Mobil Corp was off 1.8 percent to $59.75, and were the biggest drags on the Dow industrials.

Helping technology stocks, Analog Devices Inc rose 3.4 percent to $29.78 a day after the microchip maker posted a quarterly profit that topped estimates and issued a better-than-expected fourth-quarter outlook.

U.S.-traded shares of Potash Corp of Saskatchewan Inc rose 3.3 percent to $147.80 after the Canadian fertilizer group's board rejected a $39 billion bid from BHP Billiton Ltd , the world's largest mining company. Potash jumped nearly 30 percent on Tuesday.

The S&P 500 index has traded around its 50-day moving average in recent days. Stocks rallied more than 1 percent in the last session, but the S&P 500 failed to move above the 1,100 level. The 50-day average is currently around 1,088.

Renewing concerns about an overheating economy in China, China's banking regulator told banks in Beijing to test for the impact of a plunge in property values below what is owed on mortgages, a local newspaper reported.

(Reporting by Edward Krudy; editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)

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