Market follows energy, tech stocks lower
Twitter shares spike with report of possible sale talks
NEW YORK — U.S. stock indexes closed moderately lower Friday following three days of gains. Several technology stocks traded heavily, including Yahoo, Twitter and Facebook.
Twitter soared $3.99, or 21 percent, to $22.62 after business network CNBC reported that the company is in talks with Salesforce and Google’s parent company Alphabet for a possible sale.
Twitter has failed to keep pace with Facebook and Snapchat as far as growth and a loyal fan base are concerned.
Salesforce said it doesn’t comment on rumors, and Google did not respond to a request to talk about a possible deal.
Energy stocks also fell along with a steep decline in the price of oil.
The Dow Jones industrial average lost 131.01 points, or 0.7 percent, to 18,261.45. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index lost 12.49 points, or Before Friday’s drop, stocks had solid gains this week as the Fed opted not to hike rates. 0.6 percent, to 2,164.69 and the Nasdaq composite index lost 33.78, or 0.6 percent, to 5,305.75.
Stocks posted solid gains this week, with the S&P 500 up 1.2 percent, as investors were relieved that the Federal Reserve decided to keep rates at their current low level.
The next time the Fed could raise rates is November, but the general impression among investors is the central bank will not raise rates until December, long after the general election.
“As much as market fundamentals matter, the Fed and its decisions continue to dominate markets,” said Kristina Hooper, head of U.S. investment strategies at Allianz Global Investors.
Several t echnology stocks made big moves as investors worked through company-specific news on Facebook, Twitter and Yahoo.
Facebook fell $2.12, or 1.6 percent, to $127.96 after The Wall Street Journal reported that the company was overstating how long users were watching video ads, raising concerns that a portion of Facebook’s ad revenue may be at risk.
Yahoo fell $1.35, or 3.1 percent, to $42.80 after the company admitted the data of 500 million users were stolen by a foreign agent, much more than it previously acknowledged.
While Yahoo has previously agreed to sell most of its assets to Verizon, there were concerns that this development may cause Verizon to go back to the negotiation table.
While stocks rose this week, most of the gains were in safe, dividend-rich companies that investors favor when they’re uncertain about the economy.
The Dow Jones utility index was up 3.3 percent this week, and the newly created real estate component of the S&P 500, made up of real estate investment trusts, rose 4.3 percent.
Oil prices fell sharply after reports that Saudi Arabia was unable to reach an agreement with Iran to cut production. U.S. benchmark crude oil futures closed down $1.84 to $44.48 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. In other energy trading, heating oil fell 5 cents to $1.41 per gallon, wholesale gasoline fell 2 cents to $1.38 a gallon and natural gas fell 3.5 cents to $2.955 per thousand cubic feet.