By Rex Crum, MarketWatch
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Tech stocks began the year on
shaky ground Thursday as Apple Inc. fell after a Wall Street
analyst cut his rating on the company's stock and Hewlett-Packard
Co. retreated in the wake of plans for more job cuts at the tech
giant.
Apple (AAPL) ended the day down by almost $8 a share, or 1.4%,
to close at $553.13. Before the market opened, Wells Fargo analyst
Maynard Um cut his rating on Apple to market perform from
outperform largely due to concerns about the company's gross margin
growth opportunities.
Um's downgrade was countered by the opinion of Cantor Fitzgerald
analyst Brian White, who said in a research note that Apple was his
"top large cap pick" for 2014 and that research suggests Apple has
been working hard to excite investors in 2014 with new product
innovations."
H-P (HPQ) also started the year in the red, giving up more than
1% to close at $27.66. Reaction was negative to an H-P regulatory
filing earlier this week in which the company said it would cut an
additional 5,000 jobs in 2014. Those cuts come on top of 29,000
positions H-P had earlier said it would eliminate.
Intel Corp. (INTC) slipped by 16 cents a share to close at
$25.79 a share. Analyst Vijay Rakesh, of Sterne Agee, said Thursday
that there is evidence of weakness in the PC market in the first
quarter of the year, and that PC orders are likely to be below
Intel's own forecasts of a decline of 6% to 7% from the fourth
quarter of 2013.
Angie's List Inc. (ANGI) ended the day down by $1.57 a share, or
more than 10%, to close at $13.58. The online professional review
and recommendation company has in recent days been hit with
class-action suits over whether they company and its directors
failed to disclose information that would have affected the price
of Angie's List's stock during a period after the company released
a disappointing quarterly report on Oct. 24.
Losses also came from Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), AOL Inc. (AOL),
Netflix Inc. (NFLX) and Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN).
The Nasdaq Composite Index (RIXF) fell by 33 points, or almost
1%, to close at 4,143, while the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index
(SOX) fell by 1.4%.
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