Technology shares slide with broader market after disappointing news from Qualcomm, Motorola

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Sector Snap: Selling hits technology shares

NEW YORK — A broad sell-off hit technology shares Thursday as the broader market fell and disappointing news from chip maker Qualcomm Corp. and Motorola Inc. rippled through the sector.

A pared sales forecast from Qualcomm and weak handset shipments at Motorola hit “a market that definitely has a downward bias over macroeconomic concerns,” said Broadpoint AmTech analyst Doug Freedman in a note to investors.

The information technology sector had the biggest decline on the Standard & Poor’s 500 index, with communication equipment stocks among the biggest losers.

Freedman said investors are bailing out of semiconductor stocks as well because of fears that earnings have little room to climb after record profits in the fourth quarter.

For example, Intel Corp., the world’s biggest provider of chips that run personal computers, said earlier this month it earned nine times as much in the fourth quarter as it did in the year-earlier period, and its gross margin was a record high of 64.7 percent. But the company’s stock was off 29 cents at $19.95 in afternoon trading Thursday.

Rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc. was down 24 cents, or 2.9 percent, at $7.95, and the graphics chip maker Nvidia Corp. fell 54 cents, or 3.3 percent, to $16.11.

Meanwhile, software giant Microsoft Corp. fell 43 cents to $29.24, and Apple Inc., which recently announced an eagerly awaited tablet computer, fell $8.44, or 4.1 percent, to $199.44. Yahoo Inc. slid 36 cents, or 2.3 percent, to $15.62.

Qualcomm, which cut its 2010 revenue forecast Wednesday because of a lagging economic recovery in Europe and Japan, fell $6.74, or 14.3 percent, to $40.46. The stock has ranged from $32.64 to $49.80 over the past year.

Motorola fell 84 cents, or 11 percent, to $6.56. The company said it shipped 12 million phones during the fourth quarter, fewer than expected. Its stock has traded in a 52-week range of $2.98 to $9.45.