U.S. stocks keep falling amid earning reports

NEW YORK, April 20 (Xinhua) -- U.S. stocks ended lower on Friday as investors digested a string of quarterly earnings reports amid rising Treasury yield.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 201.95 points, or 0.82 percent, to 24,462.94. The S&P 500 decreased 22.99 points, or 0.85 percent, to 2,670.14. The Nasdaq Composite Index fell 91.93 points, or 1.27 percent, to 7,146.13.

Before Friday's opening bell, General Electric reported its first-quarter net income of 16 cents per share, up from 14 cents a share a year earlier and beating the market consensus.

Following the release of the encouraging quarterly earnings, the company's shares jumped 3.93 percent to 14.54 U.S. dollars apiece on Friday.

Shares of Atlassian Corporation tumbled 6.53 percent to 58.21 dollars apiece after the software maker with headquarters in Sydney and San Francisco posted disappointing quarterly results.

The latest data from Thomson Reuters showed that the S&P 500 companies' blended earnings in the first quarter of 2018 were expected to rise by 20 percent year on year, while the revenues were forecast to increase by 7.5 percent.

On other corporate news, Apple's shares dropped 4.10 percent to 165.72 dollars apiece Friday, notching the biggest laggard among the Dow components, after Morgan Stanley said the company's iPhone sales for the June quarter will disappoint Wall Street.

The Treasury yield kept rising on Friday, with the 10-year Treasury note yield jumping above 2.94 percent in the morning session, which dampened investor sentiment.

There was no major economic data due Friday.

For the week, all three major indices posted moderate gains, with the Dow, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq going up 0.4 percent, 0.5 percent and 0.6 percent, respectively. Enditem