By Christopher Whittall and Amrith Ramkumar 

U.S. stock indexes edged lower Friday as investors continued to closely watch the latest round of corporate earnings.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 61 points, or 0.3%, to 21551. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite declined 0.2%. Both indexes were still on track to end the week higher and near records, though declines Friday would end the Nasdaq's 10-session winning streak. That's the tech-heavy index's longest such streak since February 2015.

With U.S. stocks resting near record highs, many analysts say robust corporate earnings and forecasts are needed to help push major U.S. indexes even higher.

"We need strong earnings growth to see the rally continue, and we're not sure we're going to get that," said Jeroen Blokland, a senior portfolio manager at Dutch asset manager Robeco.

Shares in General Electric declined 3.1%, placing it among the worst performers in the S&P 500, after the company reported a smaller-than-expected fall in earnings. Many analysts are skeptical that the industrial giant can meet its future financial targets.

Shares in eBay, meanwhile, fell 1.7% after the e-commerce company late Thursday reported earnings that were largely in line with Wall Street expectations.

Microsoft shares slipped 0.7% from their all-time high, despite posting a jump in profits Thursday that beat analyst projections.

Still, earnings figures so far have generally been solid, said David Lefkowitz, senior equity strategist at UBS Wealth Management Americas. Many of the market's biggest names are scheduled to report next week, including Google-parent Alphabet, Facebook and Amazon.com.

"The initial read here looks pretty favorable," Mr. Lefkowitz said. "There are always pockets of strengths and weakness within earnings season, but overall it's been more strength than weakness," he said.

Investors have also kept a close eye on central bank meetings in Europe and Japan this week following recent signals from several policy makers that the end is nearing for the easy-money policies that have supported financial markets in recent years.

The euro was up 0.2% recently against the dollar at $1.1653, a day after leaping 1% when European Central Bank President Mario Draghi reaffirmed his confidence in the eurozone economy and said the central bank would discuss the future of its massive asset-purchase program in the fall. The WSJ Dollar Index, which tracks the dollar against a basket of 16 currencies, was recently down 0.2% Friday, on track for its lowest close since October.

Many investors expect global central banks to move slowly when withdrawing their monetary stimulus because economic growth has remained tepid in many parts of the developed world.

"We have Goldilocks growth prospects with improving economic fundamentals, but inflation is missing in action. That allows central banks to go cautiously in terms of normalizing monetary policy," said Arnab Das, head of EMEA and emerging-market macro research at Invesco Fixed Income.

The yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note fell to 2.239%, according to Tradeweb, from 2.266% Thursday. Yields fall as prices rise. Utility shares, known as bond proxies because they pay relatively high dividends, were the best-performing S&P 500 sector on Friday and for the week.

European stocks were broadly lower, dragged down by a fall in auto and construction stocks. The Stoxx Europe 600 was recently down 1.2%.

Earlier, Japan's Nikkei Stock Average ended 0.2% lower and Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index fell 0.1%.

Write to Christopher Whittall at christopher.whittall@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

July 21, 2017 12:13 ET (16:13 GMT)

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