Friday's early afternoon trade: Wall Street pares losses but GE-led industrials weigh

US stock indexes pared losses, helped by a rise in Visa in early afternoon trading on Friday, but weak earnings from industrial heavyweight General Electric weighed. Shares of GE fell as much as 5.4 percent to their lowest level since October 2015, as the company reported a nearly 60 percent slump in profit and its 2017 profit forecast came in at the low end.
The stock's fall weighed on other industrials such as Caterpillar and 3M. Visa rose 1.8 percent after the world's largest payments network operator raised its annual earnings forecast. The stock was the top boost on the Dow and the S&P. "We've had a good run for the last few weeks and investors are primarily digesting earnings today," said Erick Ormsby, chief executive of Alcosta Capital Management. "GE's results were okay but they guided lower and that's weighing on the market too." Microsoft fell 0.7 percent, despite the company reporting strong fourth-quarter earnings. Attention will turn to earnings from big tech names next week, including Amazon, Alphabet and Facebook.
The Nasdaq came off its 10-day streak of gains, its best since February 2015, after closing at record levels on Thursday. The tech sector, however, continues to be the best performing S&P sector this year, despite concerns over stretched valuation, as investors look for growth from sectors relatively immune to a policy gridlock in Washington. At 12:39 pm ET (1639 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 52.63 points, or 0.24 percent, at 21,559.15, the S&P 500 was down 2.98 points, or 0.12 percent, at 2,470.47. The Nasdaq Composite was down 5.61 points, or 0.09 percent, at 6,384.39.