News that Intel is having one of its best quarters in the last 10 years wasn’t enough to boost stocks on Friday, as the broader market sold off on concern about rising interest rates.
Intel said its quarter is going so well that the company raised forecasts with almost half the quarter still to go. The company said sales of microprocessors, chipsets and motherboards have been unexpectedly strong across all regions and channels.
Some analysts think the boost could be due in part to a price war between Dell and HP
. If so, Dell’s most recent round of price cuts could keep Intel’s winning streak going.
Intel rose 4% to a new 52-week high on the news, but finished well off its high for the day.
The Nasdaq fell 12 to 1765 after trading above 1800 during the day. The S&P 500 dropped 10 to 993, and the Dow lost 74 to 9348 after stopping just shy of 9500. Volume declined to 1.31 billion shares on the NYSE, and 1.7 billion on the Nasdaq. Decliners led 22-10 on the NYSE, and 21-10 on the Nasdaq. Downside volume was 73% on the NYSE, and 59% on the Nasdaq. New highs-new lows were 249-18 on the NYSE, and 309-9 on the Nasdaq.
It was a good day for tech earnings. Serena , Neoware
, TiVo
, Marvell
, Novell
and Autodesk
all soared after beating estimates.
Raindance soared 17% on speculation that the company could be acquired by Level 3
.
Looksmart gained 9% on a report that MSN plans to stick with Looksmart.
Gateway climbed 1.4% as it entered the storage market.
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