Stocks declined sharply for a second day on Friday, with the Nasdaq tallying its third weekly drop, after JPMorgan Chase posted disappointing earnings and Gap reported a decline in sales.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average, which dropped 266 points on Thursday, closed unofficially down another 143 points. The S&P 500 lost 17 points and the Nasdaq, which had its worst day in over two years on Thursday, was 54 points, or 1.3 percent lower, falling below 4,000 for the first time since early February.
"There's a lot of uneasiness about how far and fast the market ran last year, so any piece of news, even a single earnings report, can have a contagion effect," said Dorothy Weaver, co-founder of Collins Capital.
JPMorgan Chase led declines on the S&P 500, falling 3.6 percent after the bank posted first-quarter earnings below expectations. Gap shares dropped 2.2 percent after the retailer reported a drop in same-store sales, with Janney Capital Markets downgrading its shares to neutral from buy.
Friday's economic reports had the Labor Department reporting U.S. producer prices rose the most in nine months in March as the cost of food and services climbed.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange, crude-oil futures for May delivery rose 34 cents to $103.74 a barrel, rising nearly 3 percent from a week ago; gold futures for June delivery dropped 0.1 percent to $1,319.00 an ounce, up 1.2 percent for the week.
The dollar gained against other global currencies and the 10-year Treasury yield fell 2 basis points to 2.621 percent.
Stocks were slammed on Thursday in a selloff in momentum names— biotech companies and technology firms on the Nasdaq exchange. The biggest casualty was the Nasdaq itself, which saw its biggest one-day decline since November 2011.
