Wall Street: Give Me Something to Stop the Bleeding
by John Paczkowski
Posted on September 30, 2008 at 7:20 AM PT
Our industry is not immune to what goes on in the global economy. And yet as I travel, given the current circumstances, people still see a certain buoyancy in the market.”
– Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, Sept. 26, 2008
Wall Street’s 777-point selloff Monday–one of its worst days since 1929–hit many tech stocks harder even than the overall market on Monday. Said Ross Sandler, senior Internet analyst at RBC Capital Markets, “Tech took it on the chin disproportionately.”
Indeed, it did. And a couple of other places as well, from the looks of things.
A quick overview of the carnage:
- Amazon (AMZN) fell 10 percent to $63.35
- Apple (AAPL) fell 17.9 percent to $105.26
- Cisco (CSCO fell 8.5 percent to $21.79
- Comcast (CMCSA) fell 13 percent to $18.01
- Dell (DELL) fell 9.4 percent to $15.41, a new 10-year low
- eBay (EBAY) fell 12 percent to $19.95
- Google (GOOG) fell 12 percent to $381.00, a new 2-year low
- Intel (INTC) fell 10.1 percent to $17.27, a new 2-year low
- Microsoft (MSFT) fell 8.7 percent to $25.01
- Oracle (ORCL) fell 9 percent to $18.77
- Qualcomm (QCOM) fell 13 percent to $39.88
- Research In Motion (RIMM) fell 12.8 percent to $61.73
- Sirius XM (SIRI) fell 18 percent to $0.62
- Sun (JAVA) fell 11.7 percent to $6.75, a new 13-year low
- Yahoo (YHOO) fell 10.8 percent, to $16.88, a new 5-year low
Seems the tech industry “buoyancy” to which Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer referred last week was more of a noneffervescence. Certainly, that’s the impression one gets from reading the statement Microsoft just issued calling on Congress to revisit its vote against the financial bailout plan. “Microsoft strongly urges members of the U.S. House of Representatives to reconsider and to support legislation that will re-instill confidence and stability in the financial markets,” General Counsel Brad Smith said in a statement. “This legislation is vitally important to the health and preservation of jobs in all sectors of the economy of Washington State and the nation, and we urge Congress to act swiftly.”
What was that you were saying about “buoyancy” again, Steve?
Still, to be fair, the tech sector does appear to be gaining some ground in early trading today. The tech-heavy Nasdaq rose 2 percent to 2,027, reclaiming some of Monday’s ugly 9 percent loss. Apple shares are up 2.7 percent at $106.70 as I write this. Google shares are up 4.5 percent at $398.06. Microsoft is up 2.5 percent at $25.63. Even Yahoo is on an upward track, up 2.43 percent at $17.29.
Comments
Been reading allthingsd, WSJ for intelligent info the past few days. Too many of the “news” sites are hysterical. Thanks.
Posted by michelle lamar at September 30th, 2008 at 3:23 pm