Worries about a possible hard drive price war and lukewarm guidance from Adobe limited tech stock gains on Friday.
Adobe beat Wall Street estimates after the close on Thursday, but investors sent the stock 3.3% lower Friday after the company’s third-quarter guidance was a little light of expectations.
Seagate , meanwhile, fell 6.4% after Merrill Lynch said its channel checks indicate that a hard drive price war started last week, with average selling prices falling 5-10%. Maxtor
, Western Digital
and Komag
also fell sharply on the research report. Standard and Poor’s and Piper Jaffray were skeptical of Merrill’s analysis and called the selloff a buying opportunity.
The broader market posted solid gains in Friday’s trading session, but the Nasdaq added just a point.
The Nasdaq climbed 1 to 2090, the S&P rose 6 to 1216, and the Dow gained 44 to 10,623. Volume soared to 2.4 billion shares on the NYSE, and 2.1 billion on the Nasdaq. Advancers led 20-12 on the NYSE, while decliners led 15-14 on the Nasdaq. Upside volume was 68% on the NYSE, and 53% on the Nasdaq. New highs-new lows were 337-18 on the NYSE, and 144-41 on the Nasdaq.
Internet Initiative Japan fell 33% after the company failed to attract enough investors to list on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
RF Monolithics and California Micro
fell on their results.
Synopsis lost 7% after getting hit with a $477 million back tax bill.