Wall Street down on taper talk, earnings concerns; Nasdaq falls 121 points

Intel slammed after Q3 sales miss; Facebook falls on Apple privacy worries

The S&P 500 and Nasdaq were in the red on Friday after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell discussed stimulus tapering while disappointing quarterly reports from Snap Inc and Intel Corp pushed the communications and technology sectors lower.

The Dow and the S&P 500 started to lose ground after hitting record highs earlier in what became a choppy trading day.

Stocks pulled back further while Powell was speaking but went on to pare losses after hitting a session low in late morning. Powell said the US central bank was "on track" to begin reducing its purchases of assets.

"Powell's continuing on his data-driven approach