The S&P 500 shied away from a key resistance point at 1,360 on Wednesday, with tech and financial stocks among the trading day’s bigger losers.
Dell (NASDAQ:) dropped almost 6% on a lousy fourth-quarter earnings report that saw profits decline 17% and fall below Wall Street estimates. Dell also provided weak current-quarter forecasts. Netflix (NASDAQ:) dropped more than 4% on the same day it announced its service would be immediately available on Sony’s (NYSE:) PlayStation Vita handheld video game device.
Also falling were online stocks Zillow (NASDAQ:, -6.1%) Pandora (NYSE:, -4.4%) and medical information company WebMD (NASDAQ:).
Financials suffered modest losses, especially across regional banks. Comerica (NYSE:) shed around 4%, Suntrust Banks (NYSE:
) was down 3.7%, PNC Bank (NYSE:) dropped 2.5% and Fifth Third Bancorp (NASDAQ:) lost 2.3%. Big Four banker Citigroup (NYSE:) also declined 3% on the day.
Wal-Mart (NYSE:) ran into a second straight day of losses after its lackluster earnings report, shedding about 2.5% Wednesday. The company’s report, which usually comes near the end of the earnings season, was an appropriate symbol for this go-around — the S&P 500 has seen its lowest earnings beat rate (64%) since 4Q 2008, with 26% of companies falling below estimates.
Three Up
- Threshold Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:): Up 20.4% ($1.02) to $6.03.
- Chico’s FAS (NYSE:): Up 16.6% ($2.13) to $14.94.
- Garmin (NASDAQ:): Up 9.3% ($4.17) to $48.86.
Three Down
- Newfield Exploration (NYSE:): Down 12.7% ($5.37) to $36.88.
- Yingli Green Energy (NYSE:): Down 10% (48 cents) to $4.33
- Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE:): Down 5.1% (13 cents) to $2.44.
Kyle Woodley is the assistant editor of InvestorPlace.com. As of this writing, he did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities. Check out recaps from previous trading days here.
