Stocks fall; bond slide deepens

U.S. stocks stumbled as renewed selling in technology shares overshadowed what has so far been a solid earnings season. Inflation concerns sent the dollar higher, and Treasury yields topped 2.95 percent.

Major American equity benchmarks fell at least 0.8 percent on Friday, paring gains from earlier in the week. Makers of computer chips and hardware bore the brunt of the selling, with Apple Inc. capping for its biggest rout since early February following a downgrade based on its deteriorating outlook in China.

U.S. Treasury yields rose for a third session even as the stock sell-off worsened. Bond market gauges showed an increase in expectations for inflation after recent torrid gains in metals from aluminum to nickel. American oil bounced back from a decline sparked by Donald Trump’s complaint that prices are too high to settle above $68 a barrel.

General Electric Co. rose on solid results, one of just four gainers in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The company joined the 85 percent of S&P 500 companies that have topped earnings estimates so far this season by an average of 7.1 percent. Alphabet Inc. reports Monday in what will be one of the busiest weeks for first-quarter results.

Still, the late-week sell-off in equities damped the mood among investors looking to earnings season to break stocks out of a two-month range. While companies that have beaten estimates pushed higher, those that missed were punished far more severely. The chipmaker sell-off also highlighted market risks, from a potential slowdown in global growth to the implications of the ongoing trade dust-up between the U.S. and major economies.