Tech stocks battered after frustration Amazon and Alphabet results

By Noel Randewich

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – So-called Fang stocks and other tech shares in Amazon.com Inc. and Alphabet Inc.

The weak results from Amazon and Google parent are also known as FBL, which also includes Facebook Inc. and Netflix Inc.

Nasdaq future fell 0.8 percent and S & P futures lost 0.5 percent, suggesting the U.S. stock market may see more selling when it opens on Friday.

Wall Street favorites in recent years, the FANG stocks have been punished in a month of volatility for U.S. equities that has some investors worried about a decade-old bull market may be ending.

The Fang group, along with heavyweight tech stocks Apple and Microsoft, have made outsider contributions to the S & P 500's gains in recent years, and a longer downturn for those stocks would be a major setback for the market.

After the bell, Amazon tanked 8 percent. The fall came after the online retailer and cloud computing heavyweight reported that its quarterly net sales rose to $ 56.58 billion from $ 43.74 billion a year earlier. That missed analyst estimates of $ 57.1 billion, according to Refinitiv data.

Alphabet missed analysts' estimates for third-quarter revenues, while rising expenses for third-party rights, fanning concerns about regulatory scrutiny. Its stock fell 4.7 percent.

Reacting after hours, Netflix dipped 3 percent and Facebook, which reports results on Oct. 30, lost 2.3 percent.

During Thursday's official trading session, all four Fang stocks rallied by between 3 percent and 7 percent, in some areas of the market. The Nasdaq jumped 2.95 percent, but remained down 10 percent from its August record high close.

Apple fell 1.6 percent after hours, while Twitter dipped 2.5 percent. Earlier in the day, Twitter surged 15 percent in its biggest one-day gain in a year after the social media company easily beat Wall Street's revenue and profit estimates.

Snap slumped 11 percent in the second quarter of the month from 188 million in the June quarter.

Chipmaker Micron Technology lost 3.8 percent in extended trade after Western Digital said it was taking steps to reduce its flash memory chips. Western Digital dropped 8 percent in extended trade.

Intel Corp. jumped 3.5 percent in the aftermath of Thursday's reports.

(Reporting by Noel Randewich in San Francisco, editing by Matthew Lewis and Tom Brown)