Wednesday's Tech Winners & Losers

Updated from 2:05 p.m. EST with new stock prices

Tech stocks were dragged down Wednesday in part by an analyst downgrade that plunged shares of personal navigation devices maker Garmin>(GRMN Quote), as Wall Street battled a troubling economic forecast from Goldman Sachs(GS Quote).

Garmin plunged 5.3% after the stock was downgraded by a Wall Street firm over fears of increased competition, slowing growth in Europe and margin declines. A Deutsche Securities analyst downgraded the stock to hold from buy and reduced its price target to $90 from $125. Shares were down $4.21 to $75.99.

Microsoft>(MSFT Quote) recovered ground a day after the company said it will buy a Norwegian search engine developer, Fast Search & Transfer, for $1.2 billion. The per-share offer for Fast Search represented a 42% premium above its Jan. 4 closing price. Microsoft was up 99 cents, or 3%, to $34.44.

Network Appliance(NTAP Quote) gained 2.9% after regulators approved the company's acquisition of privately held storage software maker Onaro. Network Appliance said on Jan. 3 that it had agreed to buy Onaro. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Graphics chip maker Nvidia(NVDA Quote) gained $1.42, or 5.2%, to $28.89 after the stock was upgraded to neutral from sell by an analyst at American Technology Research. "The stock's recent decline now better reflects our as-good-as-it-gets thesis," said Doug Freedman in his research note.