By Rex Crum, MarketWatch
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Facebook Inc., IBM Corp. and
Pandora Media Inc. were notable losers among tech stocks Monday as
the sector tracked a broad market pullback on concerns about the
government shutdown.
IBM (IBM) was off by almost 1%, at $182.69 a share. Ben Reitzes
of Barclays cut his rating on IBM's stock to equal-weight from
overweight, saying in a research note that IBM could see some of
its business affected by threats from cloud computing and software
as a service, also called SaaS.
Facebook (FB) shed 7 cents a share to trade at $50.96 after
Raymond James analyst Aaron Kessler trimmed his rating on the
social-networker's stock to outperform from strong buy. In a
research note, Kessler said he made the move largely on valuation
matters. Kessler also raised his price target on Facebook's stock
to $56 a share from $38.
Among other leading tech stocks, Pandora (P) was off by 3.4% at
$26.58, Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ) shares gave up 1.8%, to trade at
$20.87, Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) shed almost 2%, to slip to $313.24,
and Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) was trimmed by 1.3%, to $33.44 a
share.
The Nasdaq Composite Index (RIXF) stumbled and was down by 21
points at 3,786. The S&P 500 (SPX) was off 0.4% on growing
concern that the ongoing government shutdown, which entered a
second week, would begin to have more of an impact on investor
sentiment as the next round of quarterly earnings reports
approaches.
Gains came from Apple Inc. (AAPL), which rose almost 2% to
$492.33. Jefferies analyst Peter Misek raised his rating on Apple
to buy from hold, and lifted his price target on the stock to $600
a share from $425. In a research note, Misek said that he made the
moves following a trip to Asia where he met with several Apple
suppliers.
BlackBerry Inc. (RIMM) rose almost 4%, to $7.98 a share, after
Macquarie Capital analyst Kevin Smithen raise his rating on the
company to neutral. Smithen upgraded BlackBerry after reports over
the weekend said the smartphone company is in talks about possibly
selling parts of itself to Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO), Google Inc.
(GOOG) and SAP AG (SAP). BlackBerry has agreed to be bought by
Fairfax Financial for $9 a share.
Outerwall Inc. (OUTR), which runs the line of Redbox
video-rental kiosks, was up almost 4%, at $59.37 a share after
activist investment fund Jana Partners disclosed it has acquired a
13.5% stake in the company.
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