US stocks down despite strong tech earnings

By Ovunc Kutlu

ANKARA (AA) - Major indexes in the US stock market were down after opening bell on Friday with high volatility despite strong earnings from tech companies.

The Dow Jones shed 191 points to 34,868 with IBM and Morgan Stanley falling 2.4% and 1.2%, respectively. The S&P 500 declined 21, or 0.5%, to 4,190 at 10.20 a.m. EDT (1420GMT)

The Nasdaq was off 34 points to 14,045 with Twitter plummeting 12%. The VIX index was high above 18 level with a 2% daily increase.

While Amazon climbed to an all-time high of $3,554 per share with a 2% gain after strong earnings in the first quarter of the year, Facebook was down 0.6%.

Amazon's net sales rose 44% to $108.5 billion in January-March period of this year, up from $75.5 billion the same period of last year. Net income soared to $8.1 billion, more than tripling from $2.5 billion posted in the first three months of 2020.

About Amazon Web Services (AWS), the firm's on-demand cloud computing platforms, CEO Jeff Bezos said "Companies from Airbnb to McDonald’s to Volkswagen come to AWS because we offer what is by far the broadest set of tools and services available, and we continue to invent relentlessly on their behalf."

Bezos, 57, who founded Amazon in 1994 and turned the online bookstore into a major e-retailer, will leave his CEO position in the third quarter to the company’s top cloud executive, Andy Jassy, who joined Amazon in 1997 and has led AWS since its beginning.

While Bezos remains executive chairman of the board, and is involved in major Amazon projects, he will focus on the Bezos Earth Fund, his Blue Origin space firm, The Washington Post newspaper, and the Amazon Day 1 Fund.