NEW YORK (CNNfn) - A pair of high-profile earnings warnings from technology companies sent U.S. stocks tumbling Friday, capping Wall Street's first losing week in a month.
Ericsson, the cellular phone maker, and Agilent Technologies, which makes testing and measuring equipment, each forecast lower-than-expected profit ahead. Jittery investors, who seemed to ignore a strong earnings report from Sun Microsystems, sold on the news.
After a busy five days for June-quarter corporate results, the Dow Jones industrial average, Nasdaq composite index and S&P 500 index all finished the week lower -- even as dozens of closely watched profit reports, including Intel's, Johnson & Johnson's and Coca-Cola's, topped forecasts.
Explaining the losses, Terrence Gabriel, stock strategist at IDEAglobal.com, said focus is shifting away from this week's buoyant quarterly reports and toward earnings for the current quarter ending in September, when many companies will see slower growth.
"It's almost like now the psychology is shifting to expectations that sequential quarters will in fact decline," Gabriel said. "Rightly or wrongly, that's the perception that's taking hold."
The Nasdaq fell 90.71 points, or 2.1 percent, to 4,093.85, putting the index down nearly 3 percent for the week. The Dow, meanwhile, lost 105.10 to 10,738.07, leaving it slightly below last Friday's 10,812.75 close. The S&P 500 slipped 14.89 to 1,480.58, off about 2 percent over the last five sessions.
The losses were the first weekly tumble for the three major indexes since the week ended June 23. The ensuing three-week run-up came ahead of this week's mostly solid earnings reports. In a common Wall Street phenomenon, analysts said investors bought ahead of the earnings news and sold once results came out.
"Obviously, these stocks have had a huge run-up. The theory is to sell on the news," Peter Green, market analyst at Gerard Klauer Mattison & Co. told CNN's Street Sweep. "That's what's occurring is you're selling on the news."
Despite the losses, IDEAglobal's Gabriel said the market may be insulated from major losses in coming weeks if, as he expects, the Federal Reserve leaves interest rates unchanged in August.
More stocks fell than rose Friday. Declining issues on the New York Stock Exchange topped advancing ones 1,773 to 1,101, as trading volume reached 966 million shares. Nasdaq losers beat winners 2,601 to 1,320, as more than 1.5 billion shares changed hands.
In other markets, Treasury securities rose. The dollar gained against the yen but fell versus the euro.
Ericsson, Agilent take hits
Friday's losses mark a reversal from Thursday when stocks rallied on hopes that the Fed, the nation's central bank, may be done raising interest rates. But focus quickly shifted away from monetary policy Friday to a pair of high-profile earnings warnings.
Among them, Ericsson (ERICY: Research, Estimates) fell 2-3/4 to 19-13/16 after the Swedish cell phone maker cautioned that its handset unit would post a loss for the whole business year, hurting third-quarter profitability. More than 91 million shares changed hands, making Ericsson Nasdaq's most actively traded stock.
Agilent Technologies (A: Research, Estimates) fell 6 to 48 after warning late Thursday that third-quarter earnings would be between 18 cents and 22 cents a share, well below the 35 cents a share forecast. But most of the damage occurred during after-hours trading Thursday, when Agilent shares fell to 54 from 73-3/16.
Hewlett-Packard (HWP: Research, Estimates) -- which spun off Agilent earlier this year -- shed 6-5/8 to 122-3/8, dragging down the Dow.
Alan Kral, portfolio manager at Trevor Stewart Burton & Jacobsen, told CNNfn's market coverage the earnings warnings are the negative side of Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan's success in slowing the economy with higher interest rates. (279K WAV) (279K AIFF)
Not all companies disappointed Wall Street Friday. Among the winners, Sun Microsystems jumped 5-15/16 to 104. Sun Micro (SUNW: Research, Estimates), a maker of computer networking equipment, reported a fiscal fourth-quarter operating profit of 39 cents per share, beating Wall Street's expectations.
Still, America Online fell even as No. 1 Internet service provider, which is in the process of acquiring CNNfn parent Time Warner (TWX: Research, Estimates), topped earnings forecasts. America Online (AOL: Research, Estimates) shed 1-5/8 to 57-1/2 after saying late Thursday it earned $334 million, or 13 cents a share, beating expectations by 2 cents.
Among companies reporting earnings Friday, Sears Roebuck & Co. (S: Research, Estimates) posted net income of $388 million, or $1.11 per share, surpassing the $1.05 a share estimate. Sears shares fell 1-5/8 to 32-1/8.
And Eastman Kodak (EK: Research, Estimates) earned $513 million, or $1.65 a diluted share from operations, meeting forecasts. Kodak shares fell 1-7/8 to 58.
The losses, meanwhile, continued for Lucent Technologies. After falling more than 15 percent Thursday, Lucent (LU: Research, Estimates) stock shed 3-1/16 to 51-1/8 on continued fallout from a warning that it would probably miss Wall Street's earnings forecast for the next two quarters.
(Click here for a comprehensive look at the day's earnings).
Amazon, AT&T on tap
The week ahead brings another batch of high-profile quarterly reports. Among, them Amazon.com (AMZN: Research, Estimates) will be closely watched as a barometer on the health of the Internet retailing business. Amazon is forecast to post a second-quarter loss of 35 cents a share, wider than the 25 cents a share loss in the year-earlier period. 
In other results, AT&T (T: Research, Estimates), whose shares have tumbled 38 percent over the last six months, could use a boost. The No. 1 long-distance provider is forecast to post a second-quarter profit of 54 cents a share, compared with 49 cents a share earned a year earlier.
With oil prices nearly triple what they were 12 months ago, crude producers are expected to post dramatic year-over-year gains. Among them, Exxon Mobil (XOM: Research, Estimates) is seen earning $1.07 per share profit for its second-quarter, more than double the 53 cents reported in the year-ago period.
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