MARKET CLOSE: GDP numbers spook Wall Street

A hot GDP report and renewed earnings concerns pulled stocks lower Friday as the Nasdaq composite shed 179 points to 3,663.11 while the Dow Jones industrial average dropped 75 points to close at 10,511.17.

The government reported the gross domestic product grew at an annual rate of 5.2 percent in the second quarter, well above the 3.7 percent analysts anticipated.

"People here are selling stocks," said Doug Myers, vice president of equity trading at Wachovia Securities. "The GDP report might have been sort of a catalyst. Some people think the economy is either not slowing down enough or slowing down too much. In my time, I don't recall any soft landing."

Intel (INTC) shares closed off 7 7/8 to 129 1/8. Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) lost 1/2 to 69 1/2 and IBM (IBM) moved up 1 1/2 to 111 13/16.

Nortel Networks (NT) shares closed off 6 to 72 1/2 after announcing it will buy Alteon WebSystems (ATON) for $7.8 billion in stock. Alteon shares closed off 14 to 129. Cisco Systems (CSCO) tumbled 5 3/16 to 62 13/16.

Shares of MP3.com (Nasdaq: MPPP) fell 7/16 to 9 7/8 after the company announced a settlement with EMI Group Plc. EMI is one was five record labels who filed a copyright infringement suit against the online music site.

Among widely held PC stocks, Dell (DELL) shed 1 13/16 to 43 11/16; Compaq (CPQ) dipped 3/4 to 28 1/8; Gateway (GTW) lost 2 5/8 to 55 1/8 and Apple Computer (AAPL) closed off 3 11/16 to 48 5/16.

Yahoo! (YHOO) slid 7 5/16 to 126 3/4 while eBay (EBAY) and Amazon.com (AMZN) trimmed 2 13/16 and 1 1/4 a share, respectively. America Online (AOL) closed off 1 5/8 to 52 5/8 and Lycos (LCOS) ended down 3 to 58 1/16.

Microsoft (MSFT) closed up 5/16 to 69 11/16 while Oracle (ORCL) and Sun Microsystems (SUNW) lost 2 11/16 and 4 5/8 a share, respectively.