Afternoon Market Update

US Energy stocks rose again, after posting healthy gains in the earlier session. The NYSE Arca Oil Index (XOI) gained about 0.37%, while the NYSE Arca Natural Gas Index (XNG) moved up about 0.23%. However, the Philadelphia Oil Service Index (OSX) fell about 0.07%. Shares of Diamond Foods Inc DMND dropped about 9% after the company posted weaker-than-expected Q4 results. Shares of DMND are up 8%, since the start of the year. US Tech stocks moved down in the afternoon session. The top decliners in the list were Dell Inc DELL, EMC Corp EMC and Google Inc GOOG. The gainers include Hewlett-Packard Co HPQ and Microsoft Corp MSFT. The Nasdaq Composite Index lost about 0.69%. Read more from Benzinga's Markets.