Stocks give back some of the week's gains

NEW YORK -- Stocks fell slightly in early trading Friday as investors took a breather after Thursday's big surge.

Some disappointing earnings news from Microsoft and Amazon.com weighed on the market. Both companies said late Thursday that their revenue fell short of analysts' expectations.

Many companies have been reporting better-than-expected earnings in large part because of cost-cutting, not stronger sales.

Still, investors have taken the improved results as a sign the economy is healing, sending the Dow Jones industrials back above the 9,000 mark for the first time since early January.

Bond prices were little changed. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note was flat at 3.67% from late Thursday.

CIT Group was back in focus. The troubled commercial lender said it is amending the terms of a tender offer for its notes and warned it may have to seek bankruptcy protection if enough bondholders don't agree to the new terms.

The company said in a regulatory filing Friday that if the offer is successful it won't file for bankruptcy and will pursue a restructuring through other unspecified ways.

Earlier this week, news that bondholders had come to the rescue of the lender helped lift markets.