Intel Slumps On Downgrade

Intel’s sales growth will slow this year, pressured by broader economic trends, a Standard & Poor’s analyst predicted on Wednesday.

S&P analyst Amrit Tewary lowered the firm’s chip sales growth forecast for Intel from 8% to 5% for 2005, predicting slower PC and handset sales due to slow job growth, rising interest rates and higher raw material costs.

Intel slipped 1.9% on the news despite optimistic comments from company CFO Andy Bryant, and tech stocks lagged the broader market, which rebounded from Tuesday’s steep sell-off after a government report showed that consumer inflation remained tame in January.

The Nasdaq rose 1 to 2031, the S&P 500 climbed 6 to 1190, and the Dow rose 62 to 10,673. Volume declined to 1.5 billion shares on the NYSE, and 1.9 billion on the Nasdaq. Advancers led 21-12 on the NYSE, and by a small margin on the Nasdaq. Upside volume was 70% on the NYSE, and 48% on the Nasdaq. New highs-new lows were 97-25 on the NYSE, and 50-63 on the Nasdaq.

After the close, FindWhat missed estimates and warned.

During the day, Ciena tumbled 13% on gross margin worries, and Autodesk , Applied Signal and Novell also slumped on their results.

Cablevision surged 8% on its results, while NetEase edged higher on an in-line report.

Apple climbed 3.5% on its latest iPod offerings.