US stocks retreat on lingering angst on interest rates

Wall Street stocks retreated in early trading on Tuesday as worries about higher interest rates weighed on sentiment heading into earnings season.

About 20 minutes into trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.6% to 26 336.38.

The broad-based S&P 500 lost 0.3% at 2 875.70, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index was a hair lower at 7 735.39.

Analysts cited lingering worries over higher interest rates as the yield on the 10-year US Treasury bond held solidly above 3.0%.

Some market watchers are also unsure about third-quarter earnings, with forecasts projecting a smaller jump in year-over-year profits compared with the second quarter. Those forecasts have propelled a sense that the United States is past its peak earnings period.

Among individual companies, paints and coatings maker PPG slumped 9% after projecting third-quarter earnings would be below analyst expectations due to higher raw materials and logistics costs.

Fast-food chain Papa John's International surged 6.7% following a Wall Street Journal report that Trian hedge fund was considering a takeover bid for the pizza maker.