Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) stayed under pressure Monday in the wake of disappointing sales reports last week, but the Nasdaq managed a small gain anyway.
Microsoft lost 1.5% following an 8% drop on Friday on a big sales miss, while Amazon shed 2.6% on a BWS Financial downgrade on operating margin concerns.
Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO), meanwhile, lost 2.8% despite reports that the company may yet strike a search deal with Microsoft.
Verizon (NYSE: VZ) lost 1.6% on its quarterly results, while Corning (NYSE: GLW) fell 3% despite reporting a better than expected profit.
Seagate (NASDAQ: STX) and Western Digital (NYSE: WDC) were strong ahead of WD’s results on Tuesday.
Varian (NASDAQ: VARI) soared 29% on a merger deal with Agilent (NYSE: A).
The week’s biggest report could be the government’s first read on second-quarter GDP on Friday. Economists are looking for a decline of 1.5 percent in the quarter, a sharp improvement from readings of -5.5 and -6.3 percent in the previous two quarters. It would be the fourth straight quarter of negative GDP, the first time that’s happened in 62 years of quarterly Commerce Department data.
The Nasdaq added 2 to 1967, the S&P 500 gained 3 to 982, and the Dow rose 14 to 9108. Volume rose to 4.63 billion shares on the NYSE, but declined to 2.16 billion on the Nasdaq. Advancers led by a 23-13 margin on the NYSE, and 15-11 on the Nasdaq. Upside volume was 63% on the NYSE, and 65% on the Nasdaq. New highs-new lows were 121-70 on the NYSE, and 90-14 on the Nasdaq.
