By Kate Gibson
As U.S. stocks on Friday steered toward a fourth consecutive
week of declines, the Nasdaq Composite Index remained positive for
the year, ahead of next week's earnings reports from some of the
technology sector's major players.
On Friday, telecommunications, financials and energy shares
paced Wall Street's declines, with information-technology issues
fronting the limited gains.
In early afternoon trades, the Dow Jones Industrial Average
(DJI) stood at 8,121.5, off 61.59 points. The S&P 500 Index
(SPX) shed 5.97 points to 876.71, and the Nasdaq (RIXF) declined
3.49 points at 1,749.1.
Chip giant Intel Corp. (INTC) is slated to report second-quarter
results on Tuesday, with the world's No. 1 maker of computer
microprocessors expected to report a sharp drop in sales and
earnings.
Investors are more likely to be tuned into what the company's
executives say about the business outlook.
"The market will be looking at Intel's sales and margin
guidance. The linkage between production and inventory has
stabilized the chip sector, but the market will want to see signs
of accelerating end demand to keep stock prices trending higher
from the spring low," said Nick Kalivas, equity analyst at MF
Global Research.
The only difference between tech and other market sectors is
that "technology has been in favor; a number of the stocks have
gotten way ahead of themselves," said Harry Rader, chief executive
and portfolio manager for Rady Asset Management.
Rader, who believes the stock market is ripe for a rotation "out
of technology and into something else," lists BMC Software Inc.
(BMC) and Computer Sciences Corp. (CSC) as among the tech stocks
now being shorted by his firm.
Citrix Systems Inc. (CTXS), Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ), Motorola
Inc. (MOT), McAfee Inc.(MFE), Palm Inc. (PALM) and Teradata
Corp.(TDC) also will be on Rader's list of short candidates "if
they moved up another 3% to 5%," Rader said.