Cisco Drops, EMC Pops

Cisco Systems plunged 6.4% Wednesday on disappointing results, but the surprise was that the rest of the market held up fairly well under the circumstances.

EMC even managed a 4% gain on the company’s upbeat analyst meeting.

One problem with Cisco’s numbers was falling margins. Without rising margins, Cisco will have to rely on growth to boost profits, and forward guidance of 2-4% revenue growth wasn’t enough to reassure investors.

The Nasdaq fell 20 to 1652, the S&P 500 added 1 to 967, and the Dow gained 25 to 9061. Volume rose to 1.47 billion shares on the NYSE, and 1.86 billion on the Nasdaq. Advancers led by a few issues on the NYSE, while decliners led 19-11 on the Nasdaq. Downside volume was 43% on the NYSE, and 79% on the Nasdaq. New highs-new lows were 32-47 on the NYSE, and 75-13 on the Nasdaq.

Research In Motion recovered from a steep early sell-off on an adverse court ruling.

SBC climbed 1% on ambitious Wi-Fi plans.

Microsoft managed to finish unchanged despite another antitrust development.

High-flyers were hit hard. China.com dropped 13% despite beating estimates, and profit-takers took Wave Systems down 30%.

Earnings reports in general were met with selling. S1 , Serena , CheckFree , WebMD and 1-800-Flowers.com all fell on their results.

Pixelworks gained and Genesis Microchip fell after the companies’ merger plans fell through.

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