Wall Street’s major indices fell on Friday as weak earnings reports from major technology companies led to a big drop for the sector.
Intel Corp shares sank 8.6 percent after the chipmaker’s data center business missed estimates amid stiff rivalry from Advanced Micro Devices Inc, whose shares rose 3.2 percent.
Twitter Inc shares plunged 20.5 percent after the social media network reported a decline in monthly active users, versus the increase analysts had expected, and warned of further drops as it deletes phony accounts.
The S&P 500 technology index fell 2 percent, the most among the major S&P sectors.
Shares of Apple Inc, which is set to report quarterly results on Tuesday, fell 1.7 percent.
Shares of Microsoft Corp and Alphabet Inc, which had soared after both companies recently reported strong quarterly results, dropped 1.8 percent and 2.5 percent respectively.
Alphabet shares touched an all-time high earlier in the session, but reversed course.
The pressure on tech stocks started on Thursday after Facebook Inc gave a dismal forecast that caught investors off guard about growth prospects in a sector that has led the market’s march toward record highs.
“There’s a bit of concern perhaps growing that the bloom’s off the rose for these tech stocks, that they are not invincible,” said Tim Ghriskey, chief investment strategist at Inverness Counsel in New York.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average on Friday fell 76.01 points, or 0.3 percent, to 25,451.06, the S&P 500 lost 18.62 points, or 0.66 percent, to 2,818.82 and the NASDAQ Composite dropped 114.77 points, or 1.46 percent, to 7,737.42.
The NASDAQ exceeded Thursday’s losses to register its biggest daily percentage drop in a month.
For the week, the NASDAQ shed 1.06 percent, but the S&P rose 0.61 percent.
The Dow, cushioned by promising developments in trade relations between the US and the EU earlier this week, added 1.57 percent.
Intel and Twitter’s disappointing results overshadowed data from the US Department of Commerce showing the US economy grew at a 4.1 percent annualized rate in the second quarter of this year, its fastest pace in nearly four years, on higher consumer spending and farmers rushing soybean shipments to China to beat tariffs.
Economists and investors cautioned against putting too much weight on the growth, which matched expectations, as the trade-related boost is expected to unwind later this year.
“It’s old news,” Ghriskey said. “Trade is bound to have an impact on the coming quarters if the tariff issue isn’t resolved.”
AbbVie Inc shares fell 3.6 percent after sales of its Humira drug in the second quarter barely beat Wall Street views, raising concerns about the drug’s viability as a cash cow.
Amazon.com Inc shares jumped as much as 4 percent to a record high of US$1,880.05 after the e-commerce giant forecast strong sales and posted a profit that was double analysts’ estimates. Amazon shares closed up 0.5 percent.
Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the New York Stock Exchange by a 2.03-to-1 ratio; on NASDAQ, a 3.39-to-1 ratio favored decliners.
The S&P 500 posted 25 new 52-week highs and three new lows; the NASDAQ Composite recorded 63 new highs and 99 new lows.
Volume on US exchanges was 6.81 billion shares, compared with the 6.04 billion average over the past 20 trading days.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained