Adobe (NASDAQ: ADBE) and Ciena (NASDAQ: CIEN) were two bright spots Thursday as the Dow and S&P plummeted to 12-year lows on worries about GM (NYSE: GM), GE (NYSE: GE) and bank stocks.
Adobe rose more than 3% after the company said its earnings will top expectations despite lower than expected sales, while Ciena (NASDAQ: CIEN) gained 11% after posting a loss and announcing 9% job cuts.
Despite strength in a few other names like Baidu.com (NASDAQ: BIDU), Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN), Texas Instrument (NYSE: TXN), SanDisk (NASDAQ: SNDK) and Linear Tech (NASDAQ: LLTC), the Nasdaq closed at its lowest level since 2003.
Baidu benefited from a Citi upgrade on strong traffic growth, while Amazon entered the used video game market.
Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) and Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO) lost more than 4% each on Thomas Weisel downgrades.
Dell (NASDAQ: DELL), Research In Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM), Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA) lost more than 5% each.
The news isn’t expected to get any better on Friday, with the U.S. Labor Department expected to report a loss of 650,000 jobs and a 7.9% unemployment rate in its monthly report.
The Nasdaq lost 54 to 1299, the S&P 500 tumbled 30 to 682, and the Dow fell 281 to 6594. Volume declined to 8.7 billion shares on the NYSE, and 2.35 billion on the Nasdaq. Decliners led by a 34-4 margin on the NYSE, and 23-4 on the Nasdaq. Downside volume was 93% on the NYSE, and 92% on the Nasdaq. New highs-new lows were 6-932 on the NYSE, and 1-595 on the Nasdaq.