By Rex Crum, MarketWatch
Earnings results fail to inspire investors as sector is awash in
red
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Online local-information company
Yelp Inc. and 3D Systems Corp. were among the big decliners in tech
stocks Thursday as investors sent the sector into the red along
with the broad market over concerns about some U.S. economic data
and fears that Argentina may go into default.
Yelp (YELP) fell almost 10%, to $68.26 a share, after the
company late Wednesday reported a quarterly profit for the first
time since going public more than two years ago. Yelp said that for
its second quarter, it earned $2.7 million, or 4 cents a share, on
$88.7 million in revenue.
However, Yelp also said it added just 5,900 local business
accounts during the quarter, while analysts were for looking for
about 7,700 new such accounts. During the year-ago period, Yelp
added 6,800 local-ad accounts. Raymond James analyst Aaron Kessler
noted that it was the first time in the last six quarters when
Yelp's new local advertisers didn't rise, and cut his rating on the
company's stock to market perform from outperform.
3D Systems (DDD), which makes 3-D printing technology products,
was also down by almost 10% at $50.74 a share. On Wednesday, the
company reported second-quarter earnings of 16 cents a share on
$151.5 million in revenue, while analysts had forecast a profit of
18 cents a share on sales of $161.9 million.
3D systems also estimated its third-quarter earnings would be in
a range of 73 cents to 85 cents a share, while analysts had
forecast a profit of 81 cents a share.
Mobile-device game company Glu Mobile Inc. (GLUU) slumped by
more than 17% to $5.69 a share. Glu Mobile is the publisher of the
"Kim Kardashian: Hollywood" game, and on Wednesday said its
third-quarter gross margins are expected to fall to 58% from 69% in
the second quarter.
Other tech stocks in the red included Apple Inc. (AAPL), Micron
Technology Inc. (MU), Facebook Inc. (FB) and Amazon.com Inc.
(AMZN).
Adding to the day's negativity were concerns that the U.S.
Federal Reserve may consider raising short-term interest rates, and
Argentina failing to make a debt payment that puts the country in
position to go into default.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index (RIXF) fell 60 points, or
1.3%, to 4.403 and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOX) was
down by almost 2%.
Subscribe to WSJ: http://online.wsj.com?mod=djnwires