On The Fly: Top stock stories for Friday

Stocks began the session mixed as investors were given the task of digesting an avalanche of earnings reports and several economic numbers to cap off a very busy week. The market surged the first two days of the week, putting April on track to be a winning month. The market seemed to run out of steam as the week came to a close, though. Next week is scheduled to be just as busy as the earnings parade will continue. ECONOMIC NEWS: In the U.S., GDP growth rose only 0.7% in the first quarter, weaker than expected and only about one-third of the 2.1% clip in the fourth quarter. First quarter employment costs posted a 0.8% growth pace, firmer than expected. The Chicago PMI increased 0.6 points to 58.3 in April after rising 0.3 points to 57.7 in March. In Asia, Japan's core consumer price index, which includes oil products but excludes fresh food prices, rose 0.2% in March, the unemployment rate for March was 2.8%, industrial production fell 2.1% in March from the previous month, and retail sales climbed 2.1% from a year ago. COMPANY NEWS: Alphabet Class A (GOOGL) shares gained 3.7% after the Google parent reported better than expected quarterly earnings and revenue. The company saw higher ad sales, helped by mobile search and ongoing strength in YouTube despite the worries that preceded the report regarding advertisers' ad placement on the video platform... Also higher was Amazon.com (AMZN), which rose 0.7% after the company reported stronger than expected first quarter results as its retail and cloud-computing sales rose for the quarter... Microsoft (MSFT) advanced fractionally after its better than expected profits despite reporting lower than expected quarterly revenue... Standing out to the downside among the tech titans, Intel (INTC) slid 3.4% after the company reported quarterly earnings and approved a $10B increase to its share buyback program... Meanwhile, Exxon Mobil (XOM) and Chevron (CVX) rose a respective 0.5% and 1.2% after posting stronger than expected quarterly profits. MAJOR MOVERS: Among the notable gainers was Align Technology (ALGN), which gained 12.1% after the maker of Invisalign braces issued a forecast above consensus estimates. Also higher was Western Digital (WDC), which advanced 3.9% after reporting better than expected third quarter results and guidance. In addition, Honeywell (HON) rose 1% following news that activist investor Dan Loeb's Third Point is pushing for the conglomerate to spin off its aerospace unit. Among the noteworthy losers was Time Inc. (TIME), which dropped almost 17% after announcing that it is pursuing "a number" of strategic initiatives and not pursuing a sale of the company. Also lower was athenahealth (ATHN), which fell 19.3% after the company reported downbeat quarterly results and provided a conservative guidance for fiscal 2017. INDEXES: The Dow fell 40.82, or 0.19%, to 20,940.51, the Nasdaq lost 1.33, or 0.02%, to 6,047.61, and the S&P 500 declined 4.57, or 0.19%, to 2,384.20.