By Rex Crum, MarketWatch
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Tech stocks put in a mixed
trading session Friday, with sector leader Apple Inc. closing in
the red, but Twitter Inc. among the gainers in the wake of a report
that highlighted the company's opportunities in the market for
online video advertising.
Apple (AAPL) ended the day down by $12.15, or more than 2%, at
$540.98. On Thursday, Wells Fargo analyst Maynard Um cut his rating
on Apple's stock to market perform from outperform, mostly due to
concerns about the company's ability to grow is gross profit
margins this year.
Other decliners included Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), eBay Inc.
(EBAY), Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) and Micron Technology Inc. (MU).
Twitter (TWTR) shares climbed $1.50, or more than 2%, to close
at $69. The microblogging company was seen as benefiting from a
report Thursday from Evercore Partners analyst Ken Sena, in which
he cited Twitter's opportunities in the market for U.S. online
video advertising. Sena estimated that the market for video ads
will rise to $8.1 billion by 2016, and that 17% of Twitter's
revenue by that year could come from video advertising.
Among other online and social-media companies Facebook Inc. (FB)
shed 15 cents a share to close at $54.56, LinkedIn Corp. (LNKD)
gave up 22 cents a share to close at $207.42 Yahoo Inc. (YHOO) rose
53 cents to end the day at $40.12 a share.
Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ) recovered from its Thursday losses to
rise 68 cents a share, or 2.5%, to close at $28.30 a share. Gains
also came from IBM Corp. (IBM) and Pandora Media Inc. (P).
The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index (RIXF) ended the day down
by 11 points at 4,131, while the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index
(SOX) also closed in the red.
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