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NEW YORK, July 30 (Xinhua) -- U.S. stocks wavered and traded mixed this week, as Wall Street mainly focused on corporate earnings and economic reports.
For the week, the Dow fell 0.7 percent, and the S&P 500 edged down 0.1 percent, while the Nasdaq gained 1.2 percent.
In corporate news, after Thursday's closing bell, Alphabet Inc. delivered quarterly results that beat market estimates. Shares of Google's parent (GOOGL) surged 3.33 percent to 791.34 U.S. dollars apiece Friday.
Shares of Amazon.com Inc. rose 0.82 percent to 758.81 dollars apiece Friday after the e-commerce giant posted better-than-expected quarterly results.
Shares of Facebook, Inc. increased 1.35 percent to 125.00 dollars apiece Thursday after the U.S. tech giant delivered better-than-expected quarterly results.
Ford Motor' s shares plummeted 8.24 percent to 12.70 dollars apiece Thursday following the release of the U.S. carmaker's disappointing quarterly earnings.
After Tuesday's closing bell, Apple Inc. reported its financial results for the third quarter ended June 25 in the fiscal year 2016. The tech giant posted quarterly revenue of 42.4 billion dollars and quarterly net income of 7.8 billion dollars, or 1.42 dollars per diluted share. Its shares soared 6.58 percent to 103.03 dollars apiece Wednesday.
Shares of Boeing added 0.82 percent to 135.96 dollars apiece Wednesday after the aerospace firm reported a smaller-than-expected quarterly loss.
Before Tuesday's opening bell, 3M reported second-quarter earnings of 2.08 dollars per share, generally in line with market estimates. The firm lowered its guidance for 2016 sales growth. Its shares dipped 1.10 percent to 177.66 dollars apiece Tuesday.
Shares of Caterpillar surged 5.16 percent to 82.75 dollars apiece Tuesday after the U.S. construction and mining equipment maker delivered better-than-expected quarterly results.
Shares of McDonald's corp. tumbled 4.47 percent to 121.71 dollars apiece Tuesday following the release of the company's disappointing quarterly earnings report.
The latest data from Thomson Reuters on Friday showed that the S&P 500 companies' blended earnings in the second quarter of 2016 are expected to decrease 3.7 percent year on year, while the revenues are forecast to decline 1.2 percent.
U.S. telecom carrier Verizon Communications announced earlier this week that it will acquire U.S. technology company Yahoo's operating business for approximately 4.83 billion dollars in cash. Following the news, shares of the former fell 0.41 percent to 55.87 dollars apiece Monday, while shares of the latter slipped 2.69 percent to 38.32 dollars per share.
On the economic front, U.S. real gross domestic product (GDP) increased at an annual rate of 1.2 percent in the second quarter of 2016, well below market consensus of 2.6 percent, according to the "advance" estimate released by the Commerce Department Friday.
The final reading of consumer sentiment index published by Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan came in at 90.0 for July, missing market consensus.
In the week ending July 23, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 266,000, an increase of 14,000 from the previous week's revised level, the U.S. Labor Department announced Thursday.
The U.S. international trade deficit was 63.3 billion U.S. dollars in June, up 2.2 billion dollars from 61.1 billion dollars in May, the Commerce Department said Thursday.
Values of new orders for U.S. manufactured durable goods in June decreased 9.3 billion dollars or 4.0 percent to 219.8 billion dollars, which is worse than expected, the Commerce Department announced Wednesday.
Meanwhile, traders also kept a close eye on the U.S. Federal Reserve' s policy meeting earlier this week for more implications on the central bank's next rate hike.
After the conclusion of its two-day meeting, the central bank kept federal funds rate unchanged, reiterating that it continues to closely monitor inflation indicators and global economic and financial developments.
However, the Fed officials noted risks to the economic outlook have diminished this time, leaving doors open to raise rate possibly as early as September.
"The FOMC statement was about as bland as expected. The Fed's observation of diminished risks is noteworthy, but clearly risks have not diminished enough to raise rates today," said Chris Low, chief economist at FTN Financial, in a note.
The CBOE Volatility Index, often referred to as Wall Street's fear gauge, increased 1.87 percent to end at 30.96 on Friday.
