NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - U.S. stocks tumbled Friday, with investors cashing out after the recent runup following a few weak technology earnings reports. The selling left the major indexes little changed from where they began the week.

The Nasdaq composite (down 37.78 to 1912.36, Charts) fell 1.9 percent, the Standard & Poor's 500 (down 10.75 to 1039.32, Charts) index fell 1 percent, and the Dow Jones industrial average (down 69.93 to 9721.79, Charts) fell 0.7 percent Friday.

This week has brought quarterly earnings reports from roughly 24 percent of the S&P 500. While no market-moving names reported Friday, a few did late Thursday, including eBay, Sun Microsystems, and Advanced Micro Devices. Any sign of weakness in these reports or forecasts was met with selling, with some analysts speculating that after a huge rally, investors are ready to take some profits.

"Earnings have been coming in by-and-large at better-than-expected levels. But a lot of that has been priced in, and so you're seeing some selling on the news," said Timothy Ghriskey, president of Ghriskey Capital Partners."But the profit-taking is short-term. Longer term, we should continue to see strong economic reports that support the rally, and we should start to see analysts' estimates increase for the fourth quarter."

Stocks rallied sharply in early October, with investors buying on optimism about the third-quarter earnings reporting period. As of Friday's close, the Dow is up 4.8 percent, the Nasdaq is up 7 percent, and the S&P 500 is up 4.4 percent for the month.

But this week, stocks struggled more, with investors backing off after pushing the major indexes to levels not seen in more than a year. For the week, the Dow closed 0.5 percent higher, the S&P 500 closed 0.1 percent higher and the Nasdaq closed down 0.1 percent.

The major indexes all rose in the two previous weeks.

"The fact that people are selling stocks like eBay, Caterpillar, IBM and GE very quickly of late tells you that the upside [for the broader market] right now is limited," said Peter Green, a market analyst at MKM Partners.

"You look for the biggest stocks to lead, and for that to then trickle down to the second-tier names, then the four- or five-dollar stocks and then the smaller ones," he added. "But lately, the big stocks haven't been doing much."

Next week brings another slew of earnings reports. On Monday before the bell, earnings are due from 3M (MMM: up $0.46 to $74.05, Research, Estimates), Citigroup (C: down $0.62 to $48.38, Research, Estimates),Pfizer (PFE: down $0.32 to $30.56, Research, Estimates), Bristol-Myers Sqibb (BMY: down $0.06 to $24.97, Research, Estimates), Hasbro (HAS: down $0.21 to $20.64, Research, Estimates) and Lexmark (LXK: down $2.00 to $67.25, Research, Estimates), among others. For a look at the most closely watched earnings of the week, click here.

Next week is light on economic news. Monday's most-notable report is the September read on leading economic indicators, due out after the open. It is forecast to show a flat reading after rising 0.4 percent in August.

After the close Thursday, eBay (EBAY: down $2.64 to $54.86, Research, Estimates) reported quarterly earnings of 18 cents per share, in line with estimates and up from 11 cents a year earlier. The company also issued a fourth-quarter forecast that is in line with estimates, but its fiscal 2004 earnings-per-share forecast was slightly lower than analysts' current expectations. eBay's shares tumbled 4.6 percent and pressured other Internet issues.

Also after the close, Sun Microsystems (SUNW: down $0.07 to $3.56, Research, Estimates) reported a quarterly net loss of 9 cents per share, versus a year-ago net loss of 4 cents per share. Analysts surveyed by First Call had expected a loss of 8 cents per share. The stock closed 1.9 percent lower.

Another company reporting late Thursday, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD: up $0.03 to $13.99, Research, Estimates), revealed a quarterly loss that was much narrower than analysts had expected and also was an improvement from a year earlier. But the stock closed virtually unchanged.

Shares of Doubleclick (DCLK: down $2.98 to $9.26, Research, Estimates) fell 24.3 percent in active Nasdaq trade after the Internet marketer forecast a fourth-quarter profit that is less than analysts are expecting and gave a fairly muted 2004 forecast. The company also reported higher-than-forecast third-quarter earnings.

Investors paid little attention to the day's economic reports. A reading that showed continued strength in the housing market failed to inspire any buying. Neither did the University of Michigan's consumer sentiment index, which rose to a preliminary 89.4 for October from 87.7 in September, stronger than the 88.2 reading economists surveyed by Briefing.com had expected.

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Market breadth was negative, with falling stocks beating rising ones by eleven to five on both the New York Stock Exchange, on volume of 1.28 billion shares, and the Nasdaq, where 1.72 billion shares changed hands, according to preliminary reports.

Treasury prices rose. The 10-year note gained 17/32 of a point in price, its yield dropping to 4.39 percent from 4.46 percent late Thursday. The dollar was weaker versus the yen and the euro.

NYMEX light sweet crude oil futures fell 96 cents to settle at $30.70 a barrel. COMEX gold fell $1.00 to settle at $372.20 an ounce.