Dow tumbles 590 points as major tech earnings land short of hopes
- US stock indexes slid on Friday after quarterly reports from mega-cap tech players disappointed investors.
- Amazon's first-quarter profit landed below Wall Street estimates, while Apple's decision to withhold guidance for the first time in a decade dragged on trader sentiments.
- Oil extended its rebound to a third day, with WTI crude contracts topping $20 per barrel.
- Watch major US indexes update live here.
Major US equity indexes dipped on Friday as quarterly reports from mega-cap tech firms upset investors.
Amazon reported its first-quarter results after Thursday's close, posting profits below analysts' hopes and announcing it would spend all of its second-quarter earnings on measures to combat the coronavirus. Shares slid as much as 8.7%.
Apple's fiscal second-quarter report dragged on indexes as well. While the iPhone maker's results landed above Wall Street's lowered estimates, the company's decision to withhold profit guidance for the first time in a decade rankled investors. Apple stock slid roughly 1%.
Here's where US indexes stood at 3 p.m. ET on Friday:
- S&P 500: 2,831.89, down 2.8%
- Dow Jones industrial average: 23,756.10, down 2.4% (590 points)
- Nasdaq composite: 8,614.92, down 3.1%
The two companies' earnings misses followed generally upbeat results from Facebook, Microsoft, and Alphabet earlier in the week.
West Texas Intermediate crude oil continued a three-day rally, climbing as much as 8.7%, to $20.48 per barrel. The commodity has seen a broad recovery since plunging to negative prices on April 20, though producers' earnings reports have detailed the lasting effects of the oil-market turbulence. Exxon Mobil on Friday posted its first quarterly loss in 32 years, saying that "unprecedented pressure" from the coronavirus pandemic tore into margins.
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Brent crude, oil's international standard, traded 10% higher at intraday highs, at $27.88 per barrel.
The end-of-week losses followed a mild drop across indexes on Thursday. The Dow closed nearly 300 points lower after data showed that another 3.8 million Americans filed for unemployment last week. The latest release pushed the metric's six-week total above 30 million.
Despite Thursday's decline, April was still the Dow and the S&P 500's best month since 1987 as stock prices surged from late-March lows.
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