Sun, Nokia Keep Stocks Under Pressure

Friday brought more bad economic news, and with it more selling by investors.

A warning from Nokia (NYSE: NOK), massive layoffs at Sun Microsystems (NASDAQ: JAVA) and the steepest drop in retail sales on record set an early tone from which the market never recovered.

Buyers made a valiant effort to match Thursday’s dramatic rebound, but a steep sell-off in the last 45 minutes of trading sent the indexes to their lows of the day, down 4% or more.

For the week, the Dow lost 5%, the S&P 6% and the Nasdaq 8%.

But Sun ended the day 1% higher on hopes that the massive restructuring can boost profitability at the long-struggling company.

Dell (NASDAQ: DELL) also bucked the downtrend, rising 6% ahead of its earnings report next week.

But Nokia fell 11% after predicting weakness in the handset and equipment markets into next year, the latest sign of a rapidly deteriorating economic climate. Just two days earlier, Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) had issued a dramatic sales warning.

Intel, AMD (NYSE: AMD), Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), Research in Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM), Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM), Texas Instruments (NYSE: TXN), Applied Materials (NASDAQ: AMAT), Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA), eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) and Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) were among the names losing more than the Nasdaq’s 5% decline on Friday.

The Nasdaq lost 79 to 1516, the S&P fell 38 to 873, and the Dow tumbled 337 to 8497. Volume fell to 5.91 billion shares on the NYSE, and 2.3 billion on the Nasdaq. Decliners led by a 27-7 margin on the NYSE, and 22-6 on the Nasdaq. Downside volume was 89% on the NYSE, and 89% on the Nasdaq. New highs-new lows were 5-214 on the NYSE, and 5-289 on the Nasdaq.