Street Scuffles After GE, Citi, BofA Report

A mixed batch of corporate earnings had Wall Street in flux Friday morning, but the latest sign of bottoming in the housing market nudged futures tempered the opening losses.

General Electric narrowly beat second-quarter profit estimates, coming in at 26 cents a share, but the figure still represents a 49% drop in decline from a year ago. The conglomerate upped its reserves for losses on real estate loans in its finance business by $175 million and said its revenues from China, India and the Middle East were up solidly in the period. Shares of GE lost 3.4%.

The Dow Jones industrial average was down 5 points, or 0.1%, to 8,707 early in the session; while the Standard & Poor's 500 ;pst 3 points, or 0.3%, to 938; and the Nasdaq slipped 5 points, or 0.3%, to 1,880. On Thursday, the major averages posted solid gains of about 1% after a choppy session took a turn for the better in the final hour.

The banking sector had plenty for investors to sort through Friday, with earnings reports from Citigroup , Bank of America and regional bank BB&T. Citi managed to post a surprise profit thanks to proceeds from the sale of its Smith Barney business into a joint venture with Morgan Stanley , but even without that gain the bank's loss was narrower than expected at 27 cents a share. Shares of Citi gained 4% early Friday.

Bank of America slipped 0.2%, even after its profit of 33 cents a share beat estimates by a nickel. Investors appeared concerned about rising credit losses for the firm. BB&T fell 0.7% after missing expectations by a penny with earnings of 20 cents a share.

The U.S. Commerce Department recorded 582,000 new housing starts in June, the best reading since November 2008, and revised May's figure to 562,000, a jump of 30,000.