Cisco Gains as Stocks Fall

Shares of Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO) edged higher Thursday after the networking giant beat Wall Street estimates, but the rest of the market declined on worries about unemployment and consumer spending.

Cisco added 0.6 percent after the company also hinted that the IT spending environment may finally be on the mend, but jitters ahead of the government’s monthly jobs report on Friday restrained the broader market.

Other tech companies that will be reporting results this month saw their shares come under pressure, with HP (NYSE: HPQ), Dell (NASDAQ: DELL) and Applied Materials (NASDAQ: AMAT) among the decliners.

eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) led the Nasdaq most actives list with a 4 percent gain.

Bluefly (NASDAQ: BFLY) and Activision Blizzard (NASDAQ: ATVI) rose on their quarterly results, while MetroPCS (NYSE: PCS) and United Online (NASDAQ: UNTD) fell on their earnings reports.

CDC Software (NASDAQ: CDCS) slumped in its debut, pressuring shares of affiliate CDC Corp. (NASDAQ: CHINA).

STEC (NASDAQ: STEC) fell 11 percent on a secondary offering.

After the close, Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) and Computer Sciences (NYSE: CSC) rose on their earnings reports.

The Nasdaq lost 19 to 1973, the S&P 500 slipped 5 to 997, and the Dow fell 24 to 9256. Volume declined to 6.75 billion shares on the NYSE, but rose to 2.45 billion on the Nasdaq. Decliners led by a 23-13 margin on the NYSE, and 18-8 on the Nasdaq. Downside volume was 51% on the NYSE, and 71% on the Nasdaq. New highs-new lows were 131-50 on the NYSE, and 38-13 on the Nasdaq.