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The Dow Jones Industrial Average drifted lower Friday even as the latest retail sales numbers came out better-than-expected.
The 30-stock index dropped 124.78 points to begin the week’s last session at 34,862.24
The S&P 500 slipped 12.24 points to 4,347.79
The NASDAQ let go of 26.03 points to 14,517.10.
Weaker performance from technology stocks weighed on the market. Shares of Netflix fell more than 1% ahead of the streaming giant’s second-quarter earnings report next week. Nvidia shares fell about 2%.
Retail and food service sales rose 0.6% in June, while economists surveyed by Dow Jones had expected a 0.4% decline. Excluding autos, those sales jumped 1.3%, beating economists’ estimate of a 0.4% gain.
Investors also digested strong earnings results from the first major week of second-quarter reports. Though some of the nation’s largest companies posted healthy profits and revenues amid the economic recovery, the reaction in the stock market has so far been muted.
Morgan Stanley’s second-quarter earnings report, for example, topped analysts’ expectations Thursday, yet its shares closed just 0.18% higher.
For 18 S&P 500 companies that beat analyst estimates for second-quarter earnings this week, the average earnings-per-share result was 18% higher than expected. But those companies saw their shares fall 0.58% on average after reporting.
The soft moves in reaction to corporate earnings have contributed to a lackluster week for the S&P 500, which dipped 0.2% on the week as of Thursday’s close. However, the broad index is up about 16% this year.
Much of the market’s upward pressure over the last week has come from a handful of mega-cap internet and communications stocks. Apple, Netflix, Google-parent Alphabet and Microsoft are all up this week.
Prices for 10-Year Treasurys were unchanged, keeping yields at Thursday’s 1.30%
Oil prices fell $1.14 to $70.51 U.S. a barrel.
Gold prices slid $13.00 to $1,816.00 U.S. an ounce.
