Stocks relinquished earlier gains Friday as investors began to lock in some profits after an earnings-fueled rally this week.

Stocks relinquished earlier gains Friday as investors began to lock in some profits after an earnings-fueled rally this week.

Tech stocks shot out of the gate Friday after Microsoft and Amazon blew past earnings expectations. The Dow was up a few points at the start but the tech-heavy Nasdaq jumped 1 percent as Microsoft gained 10 percent and Amazon soared 20 percent.

A late Thursday rally puts Wall Street on pace to chalk up its third consecutive week of gains, but as always, the positive momentum is subject to the whims of earnings and economic numbers once again this morning. 

It's the basic question when investing in a stock: is it on the way up or will it go down? To answer this question,  Wall Street has developed numerous ways of attempting to predict what will happen, estimating various attributes tied to stock performance in order to determine what the future holds for a company's valuation. After dissecting the data, analysts following a particular stock produce a price target of where they believe the  stock is headed. Out of the entire S&P 500, which stocks are analysts expecting to have the biggest price drops?  Here's the top 20, according to ThomsonReuters (as of market close on 10/16/09). Click ahead to find out!

The Dow and S&P snapped their winning streaks Wednesday as disappointing earnings from two of Wall Street's biggest names overshadowed another round of earnings beats.

Stocks wobbled Wednesday as a slew of earnings beats, including one from Pfizer, were encouraging but disappointing reports from two of Wall Street's biggest names dragged on the market.

Stocks wobbled Wednesday as a slew of earnings beats, including one from Pfizer, were encouraging but disappointing reports from two of Wall Street's biggest names dragged on the market.

Futures indicated a lower open for Wall Street Wednesday as cautious words from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Yahoo's missing revenue expectations lent to investors taking profits.