NEW YORK, April 20 (Xinhua) -- U.S. stocks opened slightly lower on Friday as investors digested a string of quarterly earnings reports.

Before Friday's opening bell, General Electric reported its first-quarter net income of 16 cents per share, up from 14 cents a share a year earlier and beating the market consensus.

Following the release of the encouraging quarterly earnings, the company's shares surged over 6 percent in the early trading on Friday.

Shares of Atlassian Corporation plunged more than 10 percent after the software maker with headquarters in Sydney and San Francisco posted disappointing quarterly results.

The latest data from Thomson Reuters showed that the S&P 500 companies' blended earnings in the first quarter of 2018 are expected to rise by 19.7 percent year on year, while the revenues are forecast to increase by 7.6 percent.

There is no major economic data due Friday.

Shortly after the opening bell, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 17.13 points, or 0.07 percent, to 24,647.76. The S&P 500 edged down 0.90 point, or 0.03 percent, to 2,692.23. The Nasdaq Composite Index was down 22.89 points, or 0.32 percent, to 7,215.17.

U.S. stocks ended lower on Thursday amid rising Treasury yield, as Wall Street pondered over a batch of earnings reports amid economic data.