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By msnbc.com news services

Stocks declined Wednesday after uninspiring earnings from IBM and Intel, while Chesapeake Energy sank after a Reuters report highlighted that its CEO has taken out large and unusual personal loans.

Chesapeake Energy fell and was the most actively traded stock on the New York Stock Exchange after a Reuters report that CEO Aubrey K. McClendon did not disclose loans of as much as $1.1 billion over the last three years against his stake in thousands of the company's oil and natural gas wells.

International Business Machines Corp and Intel Corp were among the biggest drags on the Dow. IBM missed its revenue forecast, while investors said Intel's results failed to make a "bull case" for the stock.

The lackluster reports from the two technology heavyweights came at the start of what has so far been a strong earnings season. The S&P 500 had its best day in a month on Tuesday as Coca-Cola Co led the day's round of solid earnings and concerns eased over the euro zone debt crisis.

Bruce Bittles, chief investment strategist at Robert W. Baird & Co in Nashville, Tennessee, expects the market to continue its back-and-forth moves, possibly trending lower in the second quarter after strong gains earlier in the year.

"A consolidation or correction phase in the second quarter would make the most sense, and probably it would be the most healthy thing for the market," he said.

On the earnings front, 22 companies in the S&P 500 were expected to report results on Wednesday, according to Thomson Reuters data. Of the 56 S&P 500 companies reporting through Wednesday morning, 79 percent beat Wall Street's estimates.

"Investors should not overreact to positive news nor should they be overreacting to really what could be viewed as isolated earnings reports. One report does not make a trend, unfortunately," said Tim Speiss, a partner at EisnerAmper in New York.

Yahoo Inc gained ground a day after reporting that quarterly revenues rose in the first quarterly sales growth in three years, as the new CEO outlined plans to revamp the struggling Internet media company.

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Stocks decline after uninspiring earnings