A $5 billion share buyback from IBM (NYSE: IBM) gave a modest boost to blue chip stocks on Tuesday, but a disappointing sales outlook from Baidu.com (NASDAQ: BIDU) dragged the Nasdaq lower.
Baidu fell 11 percent after the Chinese Internet search leader sharply lowered its revenue guidance because of a transition to a new advertising system, but that was about 10 percent better than the stock’s worst levels of the day.
IBM, meanwhile, added a fraction after adding another $5 billion to its share buyback program.
The market stabilized somewhat after two days of selling, but a big drop in consumer confidence took the wind out of an early rally.
Zoran (NASDAQ: ZRAN) tumbled 12 percent after lowering its sales and earnings outlook, which weighed on other chipmakers like AMD (NYSE: AMD), Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) and Micron (NYSE: MU), but Texas Instruments (NYSE: TXN) escaped the selling on an FBR analyst’s upgrade.
Recent winners like Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) saw some modest profit-taking, with Microsoft down a fraction and Apple and Amazon off by 2 percent each.
Interactive Intelligence (NASDAQ: ININ) lost 16 percent on its results.
The Nasdaq lost 25 to 2116, the S&P 500 fell 3 to 1063, and the Dow added 14 to 9882. Volume declined to 5.34 billion shares on the NYSE, but rose to 2.41 billion on the Nasdaq. Decliners led by a 24-13 margin on the NYSE, and 18-8 on the Nasdaq. Downside volume was 68 percent on the NYSE, and 85 percent on the Nasdaq. New highs-new lows were 84-39 on the NYSE, and 39-32 on the Nasdaq.