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| - Wall Street stocks dropped early Friday amid worries over the coronavirus outbreak and despite a blowout Amazon earnings report that lifted the e-commerce giant's value back above $1 trillion. Britain confirmed its first cases of the virus, the US upgraded its warning against travel to China, while Italy declared a state of emergency to fast-track efforts to prevent its spread after two cases were confirmed in Rome. Stocks have fallen with the emergence of the virus as a major economic risk, although the trend has been jagged as markets try to guess the overall effect. Equities rallied late Thursday after the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus an international emergency but did not recommend restrictions on the movement of people. About 30 minutes into trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average stood at 28,603.02, down 0.9 percent. The broad-based S&P 500 fell 0.6 percent to 3,264.22, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index dipped 0.3 percent to 9,271.23. In earnings news, Amazon shares shot up 9.0 percent after releasing quarterly earnings results for the holiday period that trounced market expectations. The company's profit in the final three months of last year rise eight percent from 2018 to $3.3 billion, as revenue grew 21 percent to $87.4 billion, according to the Seattle-based firm. But shares oil giants Exxon Mobil and Chevron both slid about three percent on disappointing results due to weak commodity prices. Chevron reported a $6.6 billion loss that reflected the hit from a previously-announced $10.4 billion write-down of the value of its oil and gas assets. jmb/hs
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