Amazon, Visa drag on Wall Street

The US bourse is set to open higher as European leaders get ready to meet.

The US bourse is set to open higher as European leaders get ready to meet.

Published Jul 25, 2014

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New York - Disappointing earnings from Amazon and Visa dragged US stocks lower on Friday in a broad selloff led by consumer discretionary shares.

Amazon tumbled 10.7 percent to $320.11 after reporting an unexpectedly big loss for the second quarter, citing greater expenses on investments.

With more than 7 million shares traded in the first 45 minutes of action, volume was already above the average for the past 10 days.

“Earnings have been the driving force of this market all week. We had a series of good reports but Amazon in particular was a disappointment and has led to some profit taking,” said Rick Meckler, president of investment firm LibertyView Capital Management in Jersey City, New Jersey.

Amazon dragged on the consumer discretionary sector , which lost 0.9 percent.

Visa was the largest decliner on the Dow industrials with a 4.5 percent drop to $212.63 after the world's largest credit and debit card company cut its revenue forecast for the year.

The blue-chip index was down 100 points, and Visa - the costliest stock in the price-weighted index - accounted for 66 percent of the drop.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 104.58 points or 0.61 percent, to 16,979.22, the S&P 500 lost 6.24 points or 0.31 percent, to 1,981.74 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 17.86 points or 0.4 percent, to 4,454.25.

Starbucks fell 1.9 percent to $78.94 even as quarterly sales at established stores in its Americas region grew a stronger-than-expected 6 percent.

Orders for long-lasting US manufactured goods rose more than expected in June, supporting expectations of a strong economic rebound in the second quarter.

The S&P 500 closed Thursday at a record high and was within 0.5 percent of hitting 2,000.

Pandora Media dropped 13 percent to $24.91 after it forecast adjusted profit below analysts' estimates for the current quarter.

On the upside, Baidu shares surged 7.7 percent to $220.00 after China's biggest Internet search company blew past Wall Street's targets with a 34.1 percent jump in quarterly net profit, helped by a surge in mobile revenue. - Reuters

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