Friday's Tech Winners & Losers
Updated from 2:47 p.m. EDT
Tech stocks traded slightly higher Friday as the sector's big names gained strength despite signs that the nation may be in a recession, with the dramatic loss of 80,000 non-farm jobs last month.
Shares of
Cisco
(CSCO) - Get Report
were up 16 cents, or 0.7%, to $24.39 after an analyst at Friedman, Billings, Ramsey initiated coverage of the stock with an outperform rating and a $31 price target on the stock. Cisco has the scale and scope to take advantage of the demand for IP network equipment, the analyst said in a research note.
eBay
(EBAY) - Get Report
was up $1.22, or 3.9%, to $32.94 following research notes from Bank of America and Goldman Sachs analysts that said the company showed signs of growth in its listings in March that could lead to strong first-quarter earnings.
Shares of
Garmin
(GRMN) - Get Report
recovered from Thursday's fall and rose $1.26, or 2.4%, to $54.07 after the company
clarified comments
from its chief financial officer regarding its first-quarter revenue.
Garmin CFO Kevin Rauckman told Reuters revenue is expected to drop between 40% and 50% from the fiscal fourth quarter. But a company spokesperson said Garmin's guidance has not changed since its fourth-quarter earnings call.
Dell
(DELL) - Get Report
shed 59 cents, or 2.9%, to $19.53 after the stock was downgraded by analysts at Goldman Sachs and WR Hambrecht to hold from buy.
Dell said earlier this week that it plans
a manufacturing facility in Austin, Texas, and reaffirmed its target to reduce its workforce by 8,800 employees.
(GOOG) - Get Report
was up $15.97, or 3.5%, to $471.09. An analyst at Bernstein Research said the company is probably implementing a change to its AdWords program to "drive off" arbitrageurs and drive up pricing.
Still, Google's first-quarter results may come in at the lower end of expectations because of weakness in the overall economy, the analyst said.
Chip maker
Nvidia
(NVDA) - Get Report
lost $1.20, or 6%, to $18.78 on fears of weakness in the PC desktop market.
NVIDIA draws 46% of revenues from the desktop GPU segment, said an analyst from Longbow Research in a note. The analyst also reduced his price target on the stock to $30 from $34.