The S&P 500 and Nasdaq closed lower on Friday as disappointing quarterly reports from Snap Inc. and Intel Corp. put pressure on the communications and technology sectors and investors turned skittish as Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell discussed stimulus tapering. The Dow managed to end the day with a record closing high for the first time since Aug. 16, but all three indexes had lost ground in morning trading while Powell was speaking but went on to pare losses in a choppy session. Powell said the U.S. central bank was “on track” to begin reducing its purchases of assets. Sean Sun, portfolio manager at Thornburg Investment Management in Santa Fe, New Mexico said Powell “didn’t appear incrementally more hawkish.” But Sun said investors were “really anxious” about weaker than expected earnings at Snap, which attributed some weakness in its advertising business to global supply-chain disruptions and labor shortages that caused …
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