Wall Street was lower on Friday after a slew of disappointing earnings reports from Microsoft and other major companies eclipsed a surge in oil prices which boosted energy shares. Microsoft was the biggest drag on all three major indexes. Crude rose about 2.5 percent on signs of strong US gasoline consumption, declining production around the world and oilfield outages.
At 10:59 am ET, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 69.21 points, or 0.38 percent, at 17,913.31, the S&P 500 was down 9.51 points, or 0.45 percent, at 2,081.97 and the Nasdaq Composite was down 71.34 points, or 1.44 percent, at 4,874.55. Six of the 10 major S&P sectors were lower. The technology sector was down 2.2 percent while energy was up 1 percent. Alphabet and Microsoft were down 5.9 and 7.5 percent, respectively, after both missed profit and revenue estimates. S&P 500 companies are seen posting a 7.2 percent fall in first-quarter profit, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S, and shares of companies failing to beat the already lowered expectations are getting hammered.