Dow Falls 200 Points; Alphabet Posts Upbeat Q1 Results

U.S. stocks traded lower this morning, with the Dow Jones index falling around 200 points on Friday.

Following the market opening Friday, the Dow traded down 0.50% to 39,894.22 while the NASDAQ fell 0.11% to 17,147.08. The S&P 500 also fell, dropping, 0.24% to 5,471.83.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

Communication services shares jumped by 0.9% on Friday.

In trading on Friday, health care fell by 0.9%.

Top Headline

Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) reported better-than-expected first-quarter financial results after the closing bell on Thursday.

Alphabet announced a 5% increase to the dividend with the quarterly payout going to 21 cents per share. The company also announced the Board of Directions authorized a $70 billion share repurchase plan on April 23.

Equities Trading UP
                       

• Odyssey Marine Exploration, Inc. (NASDAQ:OMEX) shares shot up 80% to $1.53. U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday to jumpstart the U.S. deep-sea mining industry. Trump seeks to secure domestic access to critical resources through this initiative and reduce America’s dependence on foreign supply chains for increasingly important commodities.
• Shares of Baijiayun Group Ltd (NASDAQ:RTC)got a boost, surging 77% to $0.3288 as the company announced plans to invest tens of millions of dollars over next five years to establish new ecosystem for autism rehabilitation.
• AGM Group Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:AGMH) shares were also up, gaining 47% to $0.0572.

Equities Trading DOWN

• Azul S.A. (NYSE:AZUL) shares dropped 45% to $0.6175.
• Shares of Coeptis Therapeutics Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:COEP) were down 33% to $8.35. Coeptis Therapeutics and Z Squared Inc. announced a merger agreement.
• Lexaria Bioscience Corp. (NASDAQ:LEXX) was down, falling 23% to $1.28 as the company announced a $2 million registered direct offering of common stock.

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 0.4% to $62.55 while gold traded down 1.7% at $3,293.10.

Silver traded down 2.1% to $32.805 on Friday, while copper fell 0.9% to $4.8120.

Euro zone

European shares were higher today. The eurozone's STOXX 600 gained 0.5%, Germany's DAX 40 gained 0.8% and France's CAC 40 gained 0.7%. Spain's IBEX 35 Index gained 1.3%, while London's FTSE 100 rose 0.2%.

Asia Pacific Markets

Asian markets closed mixed on Friday, with Japan's Nikkei 225 surging 1.90%, China's Shanghai Composite falling 0.07%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index gaining 0.32% and India's BSE Sensex falling 0.74%.

Economics

U.S. consumer confidence declined to 52.20 points in April compared to 57 points in March.

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