A market that had survived disappointing earnings from GE and IBM
finally reached the breaking point on Friday.
The culprits were eBay’s earnings warning for 2004, along with disappointing results from Sun
, Xilinx
, DoubleClick
, Rambus
and RSA
.
Even companies reporting strong results got smacked by profit-taking, among them Broadcom , PMC-Sierra
, and WebEx
. Lofty valuations from this year’s strong run-up were cited for the sell-off in those issues.
AMD , Avid
and Fairchild
were among the few posting gains on solid earnings reports.
Volatility from options expiration added to the selling, and reports of security breaches on Southwest Airlines stoked terrorism fears. Better than expected consumer confidence and home sales did little to help the mood.
The Nasdaq fell 37 to 1912, the S&P 500 lost 10 to 1039, and the Dow shed 69 to 9721. Volume declined to 1.3 billion shares on the NYSE, and 1.75 billion on the Nasdaq. Decliners led 22-10 on the NYSE, and 21-9 on the Nasdaq. Downside volume was 78% on the NYSE, and 82% on the Nasdaq. New highs-new lows were 186-3 on the NYSE, and 219-8 on the Nasdaq.
Yahoo gained all of 3 cents after Overture held onto MSN’s business.
SCO Group fell despite getting new funding.
Enterasys lost 4.5% after settling shareholder lawsuits.
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