A warning by contract electronics manufacturer Celestica and a sector downgrade by Goldman Sachs sent tech stocks lower on Wednesday.
Celestica blamed “recent order reductions from some of its largest communications and IT customers” for the shortfall, which cast suspicions on large customers like Cisco and Lucent
, which lost 4% and 2.6%, respectively, on the day. The news also weighed on manufacturers Flextronics
and Sanmina
, which fell 7% each.
Coupled with a warning from Xilinx and broad hardware and software sector downgrades from Goldman Sachs, tech stocks spent the day on the defensive.
The broader market fell on a warning from Coca-Cola and weak manufacturing reports, as lower oil prices were of little help.
The Nasdaq fell 18 to 1896, the S&P 500 lost 7 to 1120, and the Dow tumbled 86 to 10,231. Volume rose to 1.26 billion shares on the NYSE, and 1.59 billion on the Nasdaq. Decliners led 19-13 on the NYSE, and 18-11 on the Nasdaq. Downside volume was 73% on the NYSE, and 72% on the Nasdaq. New highs-new lows were 91-13 on the NYSE, and 58-28 on the Nasdaq.
After the close, Lawson Software warned.
During the day, Oracle surged 7% on strong results, but Oracle’s good news was of little help to the rest of the market.
Rambus surged 10% after Infineon
pled guilty to DRAM price-fixing.
Adobe and Nvidia
fell 4-5% on downgrades.