In this Aug. 8, 2011, file photo, a pedestrian walks past the New York Stock Exchange in New York. Wall Street stocks fell sharply Thursday, April 30, 2015, as earnings from online listings company Yelp and others disappointed while US data showed only modest growth in consumer spending. AP PHOTO/JIN LEE
NEW YORK–Wall Street stocks fell sharply Thursday as earnings from online listings company Yelp and others disappointed while US data showed only modest growth in consumer spending.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 195.01 points (1.08 percent) to 17,840.52.
The broad-based S&P 500 fell 21.34 (1.01 percent) to 2,084.51, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index slumped 82.22 (1.64 percent) to 4,941.42.
Yelp plummeted 23.2 percent after forecasting second-quarter sales of $131-$134 million, below Wall Street projections of $138.4 million. Analysts also rapped the company for a weak performance in attracting users.
Michael James, managing director of equity trading at Wedbush Securities, said government data showing consumer spending rose 0.4 percent in March was “a little underwhelming” after Wednesday’s “terrible” report on first-quarter economic growth.
“As you’ve had continually worse economic numbers, that’s only increased the concerns about an economic slowdown,” he said.
Tech stocks were especially weak, with Apple falling 2.7 percent, and Facebook and Google both dropping 2.1 percent.
Another Nasdaq sector, biotechs, reacted poorly to a disappointing earnings report from Celgene, which posted sales of $2.06 billion, below the $2.11 billion analyst forecast.
Celgene, which also gave a disappointing earnings forecast, fell 4.5 percent. Amgen lost 1.9 percent and Biogen shed 2.6 percent.
Dow component ExxonMobil lost 0.6 percent after reporting a 45.7 percent decline in first-quarter earnings to $4.9 billion due to lower oil prices. The results translated to $1.17 per share, well above the 83 cents projected by analysts.
Marriott International fell 4.6 percent despite reporting a 20-percent rise in first-quarter earnings to $207 million. Jefferies said the stock has been hit by concerns about the hotel chain’s high valuation.
Media giant Viacom, which owns Nickelodeon, Comedy Central and other networks, lost 4.4 percent after reporting a net loss of $53 million in the quarter ending March 31 due to a previously announced $784 million charge.
Bond prices rose. The yield on the 10-year US Treasury was unchanged from Wednesday at 2.04 percent, while the 30-year dipped to 2.75 percent from 2.76 percent. Bond prices and yields move inversely.