Tech Stocks Lead Market to New Lows

After holding up better than blue chips for weeks, tech stocks led the Dow and S&P to 11-year lows on Monday.

The Nasdaq’s 3.7% decline outpaced 3.4% losses in the blue chip averages. With no end in sight to bank losses and a sliding economy and housing market, traders cashed in shares of tech stocks, which have been viewed as a somewhat safer haven because of their strong balance sheets.

Some of the Nasdaq’s biggest names lost more than 4% each, including Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), Intel (NASDAQ: INTC), Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO), Dell (NASDAQ: DELL), Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL), Research In Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM), Applied Materials (NASDAQ: AMAT), Broadcom (NASDAQ: BRCM), Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA), NetApp (NASDAQ: NTAP), Adobe (NASDAQ: ADBE), eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) and Sun (NASDAQ: JAVA).

On the NYSE, HP (NYSE: HPQ), IBM (NYSE: IBM) and VMware (NYSE: VMW) led the way lower.

Tech stocks have been suffering under the weight of a dramatic sales miss by HP last week, while Dell’s earnings report Thursday night will be the next big report for the sector.

NetApp’s 8% loss could have been accelerated by worries about competition from EMC (NYSE: EMC).

Palm (NASDAQ: PALM) was somewhat of an outperformer, closing down fractionally on a Deutsche Bank upgrade.

The Nasdaq tumbled 53 to 1387, the S&P 500 lost 26 to 743, and the Dow fell 250 to 7114. Volume declined to 7.58 billion shares on the NYSE, and 2.08 billion on the Nasdaq. Decliners led by a 32-6 margin on the NYSE, and 22-6 on the Nasdaq. Downside volume was 79% on the NYSE, and 86% on the Nasdaq. New highs-new lows were 8-558 on the NYSE, and 4-382 on the Nasdaq.