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NEW YORK - US stocks fell for a third straight session Friday, with the tech sector in focus after weak results from computer maker Dell on the heels of a downgrade of key semiconductor stocks.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 14.28 points (0.14 percent) to 10,318.16, finishing the week on a slim gain of 0.46 percent.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 10.78 points (0.50 percent) to 2,146.04 and the broad-market Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 3.52 points (0.32 percent) to 1,091.38. Both indexes were lower for the week.
Stocks started off on a bearish note after Dell reported late Thursday that its third quarter net profit declined 54 percent and revenue dropped 15 percent.
The news coming a day after a Bank of America Merrill Lynch's downgrade of eight microchip companies, including Intel and Texas Instruments, kept the market jittery.
"The firm fell woefully short of analysts' profit and revenue expectations, sparking concerns about the health of the broader tech sector," said analyst Elizabeth Harrow of Schaeffer's Investment Research.
European Central Bank president Jean-Claude Trichet's warning that "it is too early to declare the (financial) crisis over" also made investors nervous, she said.
Trichet however indicated that supportive stimulus measures must soon be unwound, prompting traders to buy the US dollar in a safe-haven stampede, pressuring oil futures lower. Energy stocks joined tech issues in the red.
Analysts at Charles Schwab & Co said traders "continue to rein in risk appetites" while grappling with whether the economic recovery from recession can continue without major problems.
They said economic data this week had done little to soothe recovery concerns, with a slightly hotter-than-expected reading of prices at the consumer level, a smaller-than-expected increase in industrial production, unexpected declines in both housing starts and building permits, and a jobless claims report that failed to drop below the 500,000 mark as some had hoped.
"This week's dose of data has been hard for the Street to swallow, exacerbating the economic uncertainty and prompting the pullback in risk-taking," they said in a note to clients.
Energy stocks were among the losers amid a strengthening dollar, which makes greenback-denominated commodities such as crude oil more expensive for buyers using other currencies.
Chevron fell 0.74 percent to 76.77 dollars while ExxonMobil dipped 0.36 percent to 74.38 dollars.
Goldman Sachs shed 1.63 percent to 170.01 dollars amid a report that some of its biggest shareholders have asked the bank, which is set to deliver 20 billion dollars, to pass more of its substantial profit along to investors.
Online marketplace eBay fell 1.72 percent to 22.79 dollars after announcing that it has completed the spinoff of the Internet telephony unit Skype for two billion dollars.
The bond market also fell. The yield on the 10-year US Treasury bond rose to 3.356 percent from 3.349 percent Thursday and that on the 30-year bond to 4.295 percent from 4.288 percent.
- AFP /ls
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