Defriended, Facebook Falls: Winners & Losers

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Wall Street has never been a place for making friends, and Facebook (FB) continues to find itself "defriended" with each new 52-week low.

Facebook shares plunged below the $20 level as a lockup period expired Thursday, with an additional 270 million shares now eligible to be traded. As part of Facebook's IPO in May, there was an agreement for an additional 2 billion shares to come on the market over the next nine months. Thursday's lockup expiration is just the first of several over the next nine months.

Shares hit a new 52-week low of $19.69 before bouncing slightly higher, trading at $20.02, off 5.57% on more than 100 million shares.

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Apple (AAPL) shares edged higher after reports that the company might be working on a new set-top box to entrench itself in the living room.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the Cupertino, Calif.-based firm is in talks with U.S. cable operators about building an Apple set-top box for live television. It's unclear at this point if Apple is abandoning its television set plans, or if this will be an add-on to the existing Apple TV. There's also the potential for the technology to be put into an actual television, The Journal said, citing two people briefed on the matter.

Shares of Apple gained 0.71% to $635.34 in Thursday trade.

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Cisco Systems (CSCO) led technology higher, after the network equipment provider reported fourth-quarter earnings that beat expectations.

Cisco earned 47 cents a share on revenue of $11.7 billion, up from 40 cents a share $11.2 billion in the same period last year. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters were looking for 45 cents per share on $11.6 billion in revenue.

The company also boosted its quarterly dividend 75% to 14 cents per share per quarter.

Cisco shares had strong gains Thursday, up 8.65% to $18.85 on more than 88 million shares.

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Groupon (GRPN) continued its descent, falling below the $5 level, before recovering.

Earlier in the week, the Chicago-based company reported second-quarter earnings that missed expectations. Groupon had non-GAAP earnings of 8 cents a share on revenue of $568.3 million. The average estimate of analysts polled by Thomson Reuters was for a profit of 3 cents a share on revenue of $573.1 million

Shares of Groupon fell 5.64% to $5.02 on 20 million shares, nearly twice its average daily volume.

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--Written by Chris Ciaccia in New York

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