Adobe Soars as Stocks Fall

A day after their best one-day performance in five years, stocks gave most of their gains back, led lower by falling commodity prices and worries that subprime mortgage troubles may be far from over.

Adobe investors had reason to cheer, though, as the company’s shares soared 9% after its quarterly results came in better than expected. Sales rose 37% and earnings more than 50% at the software maker.

Chip stocks led the tech sector lower, with losses of 3% or more in Intel, AMD and Applied Materials.

Dell and Cisco lost 4% each, and wireless stocks were hit hard on weak results from the Sony Ericsson venture. Ericsson and Nokia lost 10% each on the news.

3Com plunged 22% after its buyout stalled once again.

Palm fell 10% a day ahead of its results, and Monster shed 9% on a downgrade.

Internap lost 33% after delaying an SEC filing.

The Nasdaq lost 58 to 2209, the S&P tumbled 32 to 1298, and the Dow plunged 293 to 12,099. Volume declined to 5.44 billion shares on the NYSE, and 2.33 billion on the Nasdaq. Decliners led by a 23-9 margin on the NYSE, and 20-8 on the Nasdaq. Downside volume was 78% on the NYSE, and 85% on the Nasdaq. New highs-new lows were 23-95 on the NYSE, and 44-201 on the Nasdaq.