* Railroads push DJ transportation average down 3.5 pct
* Microsoft, Amazon shares soar on results
* Dow's 2nd close below 10,000 this week
* Dow off 1.1 pct, S&P off 1.2 pct, Nasdaq off 0.5 pct * For up-to-the-minute market news, click [STXNEWS/US] (Updates to close)
By Rodrigo Campos
NEW YORK, Oct 23 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks fell on Friday, with the major indexes slipping for the first week in three, as industrial companies' weak results overshadowed robust earnings from tech and retail heavy-weights.
The blue-chip Dow average finished below 10,000 for the second time this week.
A stronger U.S. dollar hit commodity prices, hurting the energy and materials sectors, while an analyst's comments on a major railroad's stock hit the transports sector.
Shares of Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp
The U.S. dollar rose against the pound
The dollar's strength helped push oil and commodity prices lower, sending shares of companies in the energy and materials sectors down. The S&P materials sector <.GSPM> fell 2.1 percent.
But shares of technology bellwether Microsoft Corp
"In the face of a market moving down, Microsoft and Amazon are up strong. Today it is not a stock market, but a market of stocks. If companies come out with good reports, they are being rewarded," said Robert Auer, senior portfolio manager at SBAuer Funds in Indianapolis.
"For the rest of the market, it is a normal day. We're up more than 50 percent on the S&P from the March lows, and the market just has to go down sometimes."
The Dow Jones industrial average <.DJI> dropped 109.13 points, or 1.08 percent, to 9,972.18, marking its second finish this week below the 10,000 mark. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.SPX> dropped 13.31 points, or 1.22 percent, to 1,079.60. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.IXIC> dropped 10.82 points, or 0.50 percent, to 2,154.47.
On Wednesday, the Dow industrials also finished slightly below the 10,000 mark following a late sell-off led by financial stocks.
For the week, the Dow slipped 0.2 percent and the S&P 500 declined 0.7 percent, while the Nasdaq dipped 0.1 percent.
RAILROADS' ROUGH DAY
In Friday's session, Burlington Northern's shares fell 6.5 percent, or $5.50, to $79.12 a day after the company reported a 30 percent drop in quarterly profit. The company hauls a variety of commodities such as coal, grain, lumber, construction materials, automobiles and consumer goods. [ID:nN22525797].
An RBC Capital analyst cut his price target on Burlington Northern's stock to $87 from $91, while keeping his "underperform" rating.
Shares of Union Pacific Corp
Oilfield services company Schlumberger Ltd
U.S. crude oil futures
Top decliners in the tech sector included Broadcom Corp
Shares of Broadcom, which makes chips for everything from cellphones to TV set-top boxes, slid 7.3 percent to $28.50 on Nasdaq. The stock of MEMC Electronic Materials, which makes silicon, the major raw material for the solar and semiconductor industries, dropped 10.1 percent to $13.87 on the New York Stock Exchange.
The semiconductor index <.SOXX> lost 3.2 percent.
Earlier in the day, September data showed sales of previously owned U.S. homes surged to their highest level since July 2007. [ID:nN2390489]
Volume was moderate on the New York Stock Exchange, with 1.28 billion shares changing hands, below last year's estimated daily average of 1.49 billion. On the Nasdaq, about 2.48 billion shares traded, above last year's daily average of 2.28 billion.
Declining stocks outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a ratio of about 3 to 1, while on the Nasdaq, nearly 10 stocks fell for every three that rose. (Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Additional reporting by Aarthi Sivaraman; Editing by Jan Paschal)