US STOCKS-Egypt unrest, weak earnings sock Wall St

                                

                                
 * Egyptian riots add to jitters; oil futures fall
                                
 * Ford sinks after results, weighs on GM
                                
 * Dow could cap 8-week streak of gains
                                
 * Indexes down: Dow 1.1 pct, S&P 1.4 pct, Nasdaq 2.1 pct
                                
 * For up-to-the-minute market news see [STXNEWS/US]
  (Updates to early afternoon)
                                
 By Rodrigo Campos
                                
 NEW YORK, Jan 28 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks fell from 29-month
highs on Friday as investors worried about escalating
anti-government protests in Egypt and as Amazon and Ford shares
tumbled after results.
                                
 Nasdaq quotations for its main stock indexes suffered an
outage of nearly one hour at the open, causing confusion among
traders. Nasdaq OMX Group <NDAQ.O> has not explained what
caused the problem. For details see [ID:nN28114528]
                                
 Investors shunned risk and a volatility index spiked after
dozens of people were wounded as Egyptian armed forces deployed
in Cairo and other major cities to tackle huge popular protests
demanding the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak.
[ID:nLDE70Q2OZ] and [ID:nLDE70O2DA]
                                
 "It is too soon to say what the outcome of this is going to
be," said Joe Battipaglia, market strategist at Stifel Nicolaus
in Yardley, Pennsylvania. "A breakdown in internal control in
Egypt will be debilitating for North Africa, will have negative
impact on energy prices, and that could be a challenge to the
economy in 2011."
                                
 Crude futures <CLc1> jumped about 4 percent to nearly $89
per barrel.
                                
 The Dow Jones industrial average <.DJI> dropped 136.23
points, or 1.14 percent, to 11,853.60. The Standard & Poor's
500 Index <.SPX> fell 17.65 points, or 1.36 percent, to
1,281.89. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.IXIC> lost 59.10 points,
or 2.14 percent, to 2,696.18.
                                
 The Dow's decline threatened to end a streak of eight weeks
of gains in the blue-chip index. The S&P 500 was on track to
close below its 14-day moving average for the first time in two
months.
                                
 Ford Motor Co <F.N> slumped 11.8 percent to $16.57 after a
steep drop in quarterly profit due to a charge for debt
payments. Rival automaker General Motors Co <GM.N> lost 5.2
percent to $36.64. [ID:nN28244684]
                                
 Dow component Microsoft Corp <MSFT.O> fell 4.5 percent to
$27.57 a day after its profit dipped. Amazon.com Inc <AMZN.O>
dropped 8.4 percent to $168.93 after the online retailer
recorded revenue below the consensus view. [ID:nN27267295] and
[ID:nN27148561]
                                
 "What were seeing on the earnings front is investors having
a great deal of anticipation, hoping to drive prices to
records, and now we're selling on the news of those earnings,"
Battipaglia said.
                                
 In another sign of uncertainty, the CBOE volatility index
<.VIX> rose 19 percent to 19.21 in its largest daily percentage
gain since June.
                                
 During the Nasdaq outage, traders said there were no quotes
for the Nasdaq composite <.IXIC> and the Nasdaq 100 <.NDX>
indexes. Individual share price quotes were not affected, and
trading volume was normal.
                                
 Equities garnered support earlier in the session from data
showing the U.S. economy grew at a 3.2 percent rate in the
fourth quarter as consumer spending accelerated. Excluding
inventories sales grew about 7.1 percent, the best since 1984.
[ID:nN27219246]
  (Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)