While you were sleeping: Dow stalls as Apple shares weigh on Wall St

Wall Street ended mixed after Apple share declined amid reports of weaker-than-expected appetite for its iPhone 8.

At the close of trading in New York, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 5.44 points, or 0.02%, to 23,163.04 after dropping more than 100 points earlier in the session.

The Nasdaq Composite Index declined 0.3% to 6605.07 while the Standard & Poor's 500 Index was up 0.03% to 2562.10.

"On the equities side, it does really feel like we're probably overdue for some kind of a correction," Michael Hanson, the chief US macro strategist at TD Securities in New York, told Bloomberg.

The 30th anniversary of the so-called Black Monday crash could also be weighing on investor sentiment, he added.

US Treasuries rose, pushing yields on the 10-year note three basis points lower to 2.32%.

In  the Dow, Apple shares fell 2.4%, Goldman Sachs was down 0.8% and Boeing eased 0.4%. They were offset by Verizon, up 1.2%. The US wireless provider reported better-than-expected quarterly revenue as well as phone subscriber growth.

"We attribute the Verizon wireless strength to both their network advantage and the competitive landscape being levelled with everyone selling unlimited data," Kevin Roe, an analyst with Roe Equity Research, told Bloomberg.

Lower iPhone 8 sales
Apple shares dropped amid concern about lower-than-expected demand for its iPhone 8 and reports that Apple slashed orders for its latest model, which went on sale last month, by more than 50%. Apple is set to release the iPhone X next month.

"The Street is hyper-sensitive to any speed bumps around this next iPhone cycle and [that] speaks to the knee-jerk reaction we are seeing in shares," Daniel Ives, chief strategy officer at research house GBH Insights in New York, told Reuters.

"iPhone 8 demand has been naturally soft out of the gates with the main event being the iPhone X launch in early November," he said. But "this is the early innings of what we believe is the biggest iPhone product cycle with X leading the way."

Disappointing quarterly results also weighed on the mood. United Continental Holdings sank 10.5% after the airline offered a profit outlook that failed to meet expectations.

In Europe, the Stoxx 600 Index fell 0.6%. The UK's FTSE 100 Index eased 0.3%, as did France's CAC 40 Index. Germany's DAX Index fell 0.4%.

Nestlé shares declined 1.0% in Zurich, after the world's largest food company boosted its forecast for restructuring costs.

Nestlé may spend close to one billion Swiss francs ($US1 billion) on business reorganisation this year, chief financial officer Francois-Xavier Roger said on a call with reporters, Bloomberg reported.

In a statement, the company said its structural savings initiatives were "progressing faster than originally planned," leading to an additional increase of 400-500 million Swiss francs in restructuring and related expenses in 2017.

"Improving our efficiency is a key priority," Mark Schneider, Nestlé CEO, said in the statement. "We have identified further opportunities to accelerate our margin improvement, leading to a further increase in restructuring and related expenses in 2017."

(BusinessDesk)