Stocks fell sharply Thursday as economic worries resurfaced, but there was some good news in the data storage sector and signs of health in the market for venture-backed IPOs.
Brocade (NASDAQ: BRCD) shares jumped 14% after its results topped Wall Street forecasts, as the storage and network switch company appears to be giving Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) some competition.
And Data Domain (NASDAQ: DDUP) soared 34% on news that it will be acquired by NetApp (NASDAQ: NTAP).
The market for venture-backed IPOs also came to life this week for the first time since Rackspace Hosting (NYSE: RAX) went public last August, with strong first-day performances from OpenTable (NASDAQ: OPEN) and SolarWinds (NYSE: SWI).
Tessera Tech (NASDAQ: TSRA) soared 21% after winning a patent ruling against Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM), Motorola (NYSE: MOT) and others.
Tech Data (NASDAQ: TECD) was another winner, surging 10% after its quarterly results blew past analysts’ estimates.
But the rest of the market fell on fears of a U.S. credit rating downgrade following a UK downgrade by S&P, along with weaker than expected readings for Mid-Atlantic manufacturing and jobless claims.
Dell (NASDAQ: DELL) lost 3% ahead of its earnings report next week.
After the close, Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM) fell on its earnings news, while Autodesk (NASDAQ: ADSK) surged on its results.
The Nasdaq lost 32 to 1695, the S&P 500 dropped 15 to 888, and the Dow fell 129 to 8292. Volume declined to 6 billion shares on the NYSE, and 2.26 billion on the Nasdaq. Decliners led by a 27-9 margin on the NYSE, and 19-8 on the Nasdaq. Downside volume was 77% on the NYSE, and 77% on the Nasdaq. New highs-new lows were 14-41 on the NYSE, and 19-18 on the Nasdaq.