By Benjamin Pimentel, MarketWatch
Technology stocks were mostly in the red Thursday with
BlackBerry sliding after Chief Executive John Chen sought to
clarify the beleaguered company's plan for its struggling handset
business.
BlackBerry (RIMM) shed 1.5% to $7.84. Chen told Fox Business
Network, "I don't have any plans to jettison the handset business.
We love the handset business." The statement followed a Reuters
report in which Chen was quoted as saying, "If I cannot make money
on handsets, I will not be in the handset business."
BlackBerry's decline set the tone for a tech sector-wide retreat
which saw the Nasdaq Composite Index (RIXF) fall 62 points to
4,121. The Morgan Stanley High Tech 35 Index (MSH) and the
Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOX) were each down about 1%.
Also in the red were shares of eBay Inc. (EBAY), which were off
2%. EBay said Thursday that it has reached a settlement with
billionaire Carl Icahn who has agreed to withdraw his proposal to
spin off PayPal.
On the upside, shares of Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) were up 2%, one
of the top gainers on the S&P 500 (SPX), which was down 0.4%.
Deutsche Bank initiated coverage of H-P with a buy rating, saying,
the company is "mid-way through a five-year turnaround, and thus
far has done a good job of stabilizing the business."
Shares of IBM Corp (IBM) were up 1%. The company announced
Thursday that it has acquired Silverpop, a cloud-based marketing
services company based in Atlanta, Georgia.
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