Stocks lost ground Thursday on fears of inflation and slowing growth, but Google gained ground on upbeat comments at the company’s annual analyst day.
Shares of Google rose 5% after the company sounded a much more upbeat note than CFO Greg Reyes did on Tuesday, when the stock fell 7%.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt said Google is building the infrastructure to become a $100 billion company — which would be 1,600% growth from last year’s sales of $6.14 billion. Schmidt also said the company still sees “significant keyword pricing upside.”
Schmidt’s comments were enough to calm fears about the company’s growth rate, at least for a day.
The broader market, though, sagged under the weight of rising interest rates and oil prices and weaker than expected retail sales.
The Nasdaq slipped 3 to 2311, the S&P 500 gave back 2 to 1289, and the Dow slumped 28 to 11,025. Volume rose to 2.49 billion shares on the NYSE, but declined to 2.11 billion on the Nasdaq. Decliners led 17-14 on the NYSE, and 17-13 on the Nasdaq. Downside volume was 54% on the NYSE, and 52% on the Nasdaq. New highs-new lows were 149-19 on the NYSE, and 166-35 on the Nasdaq.
Ciena and ADC Telecom
gained on their results.
Versant soared 50% on its results.
MatrixOne jumped on a takeover offer from France’s Dassault Systemes.
