Stocks fall, led lower by tech and energy shares

NEW YORK - U.S. stocks fell on Wednesday as a burst of disappointing earnings from Intel Corp. and Yahoo Inc. fueled concern that U.S. corporate profit growth may be faltering.
Also pressuring the broad market were energy shares, with Exxon Mobil Corp. shedding 1.7 percent to $60.50 on the New York Stock Exchange amid escalating threats against oil producers in Nigeria.
The Nasdaq fell as much as 1.7 percent earlier, but the decline attracted bargain-hunting institutional investors, who bought tech shares relatively cheaply and helped the Nasdaq regain some ground.
"The sell-off is kind of stock-specific from an earnings standpoint," said Jay Suskind, director of trading at Ryan, Beck & Co.
The Dow Jones industrial average was down 54.82 points, or 0.50 percent, at 10,841.50. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index was down 7.91 points, or 0.62 percent, at 1,275.02. The technology-laced Nasdaq Composite Index was down 29.03 points, or 1.26 percent, at 2,273.66.
Intel and Yahoo were the two biggest drags on both the Nasdaq and the Standard & Poor's 500, while Intel also was the heaviest weight on the blue-chip Dow average.
"The disappointment from Yahoo and Intel took a lot of technology names down, and institutional people have used the overall market weakness caused by Yahoo and Intel to do some buying into other technology names," said Michael James, senior trader at regional investment bank Wedbush Morgan in Los Angeles.
Dealers said technology stocks benefiting in the down market included Advanced Micro Devices Inc., the world's second-largest chip maker behind Intel. Its
shares rose 3.3 percent to $33.93 on the NYSE.
Also, Applied Materials Inc., the biggest maker of tools to produce microchips, gained 1.01 percent to $19.97 on Nasdaq.
Intel's stock was down 11.9 percent at $22.48, while Yahoo shares were off 11.5 percent at $35.51.