New York, April 23 (IANS) US stocks closed mixed on Friday as investors assessed an array of generally negative quarterly earnings reports from notable companies.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 21.23 points, or 0.12 percent, to 18,003.75. The S&P 500 edged down 0.10 point, or less than 0.01 percent, to 2,091.58. The Nasdaq Composite Index dipped 39.66 points, or 0.80 percent, to 4,906.23.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq underperformed the other two indices as a batch of tech giants suffered big losses following the releases of their lackluster quarterly results.
After Thursday's closing bell, Alphabet, Google's parent company, reported first quarter 2016 earnings of $4.21 billion on revenues of $20.26 billion, compared with earnings of $3.52 billion on revenues of $17.26 billion a year ago.
Alphabet Class A, however, tumbled 5.41 percent to $737.77 apiece Friday as both the earnings and revenues missed Wall Street estimates.
Shares of Microsoft plunged 7.17 percent to 51.78 dollars apiece Friday after the tech giant reported quarterly results that were also well below market consensus.
In response, technology sector, the biggest laggard among the S&P 500's ten sectors, slid 1.90 percent Friday.
On other earnings report, shares of McDonald's edged down 0.23 percent to $125.50 apiece Friday following the release of the world's biggest restaurant chain's better-than-expected quarterly results.
On the economic front, the seasonally adjusted Markit Flash US Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index came in at 50.8 in April, missing market consensus of 52.0.
For the week, the Dow added 0.6 percent, and the S&P 500 increased 0.5 percent, while the Nasdaq fell 0.6 percent.
