Stocks drop on weak tech earnings, oil

Stocks dropped in midday Friday after two tech giants reported

disappointing earnings and oil prices keep rising.



The Nasdaq composite index lost 0.8% after Google and Microsoft posted

earnings that missed Wall Street estimates. Microsoft plunged more

than 10% and Google was down 2%.



TECH STOCKS: Microsoft, Google sink



Technology "has definitely been a sector that people have been

expecting big things from and it has not delivered," said Randy

Frederick, Managing Director of Active Trading & Derivatives at the

Schwab Center for Financial Research.



The Dow Jones industrial average was off 0.2% and the Standard &

Poor's 500 index was down 0.1%.



Oil prices rose as high as $109.32 a barrel in early morning trading

on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contact rose $1.56 on

Thursday. Oil has jumped more than $11 a barrel in July, and pushed up

the price of gasoline along with it.



In government bond trading, the yield on the 10-year Treasury note

fell to 2.49% from 2.53% late Thursday.



Friday's decline came as stocks rose to record levels on Thursday as a

strong rally continued to boost Wall Street. The Dow notched its 27th

record closing this year. The S&P 500 set its fourth new high in the

past six trading days.



The Dow rose 0.5% to 15,548.54, the S&P 500 closed up 0.5% at

1,689.37. The Nasdaq composite added 0.04% to 3,611.28.



THURSDAY: Dow, S&P 500 close at all-time highs



And the broadest sign of the bull market's health was the Wilshire

5000, which also contains shares of small companies, which have been

the leaders in the recent leg up. The Wilshire 5000 jumped 0.5%

Thursday, setting the 33rd record close since it set a new record at

the time on Jan. 25, 2013.



Thanks to the powerful rally in small companies' shares, the Wilshire

is up 19.4% for the year, putting $3.4 trillion into investors'

pockets. Investors have made more than $1.1 trillion this month so

far, the fastest that much money has been created in a month since a

10-day rally in Oct. 14, 2011, says Wilshire Associates.



In Europe, the major indexes closed down slightly - all of them lost

less than 0.1%. Britain's FTSE 100 ended the day at 6,631 losing only

3 points. Germany's DAX lost 5 points to close at 8,332 and France's

CAC 40 was off 3 points to close at 3,925.



Asian stock markets were mostly down at the end of the week. Japan's

Nikkei 225 was down 1.5% at 14,589.91 while Hong Kong's Hang Seng

closed up less than 0.1% at 21,362.42.