Semiconductor Sector Hit Hard on Down Day for Markets
The ever-volatile semiconductor sector was reeling today as many names in the group fell sharply. Although no major piece of news seemed to be driving the sector down on Thursday, a number of profit warnings in recent days has worried investors about the upcoming earnings season.
The Philadelphia Stock Exchange Semiconductor Index
, or the
SOX
, was off 4.7% to 608.8 points.
Transmeta
(TMTA)
was off 89 cents, or 6.4% to $13.05 in recent
Nasdaq
activity. Also falling was
Micron Technology
(MU) - Get Report
, which lost $2.58, or 6.3%, to $38.32 in recent
New York Stock Exchange
trading.
Intel
(INTC) - Get Report
also took a hit, slipping 3.7%, while
Applied Micro Devices
(AMD) - Get Report
lost $1.73, or 5.9% in recent Big Board activity.
Communications chipmaker
PMC-Sierra
(PMCS)
was down $1.68, or 5.4% and
Broadcom
(BRCM)
posted a 3.7% loss.
Adding to the negativity,
Texas Instruments
(TXN) - Get Report
said on Wednesday it still sees a sequential sales drop-off of 20%. The company was reiterating a previous forecast from April. By late afternoon trading, shares of the company had fallen $2.22, or 6.5%.
Silicon Storage Technology
(SSTI) - Get Report
, a maker of memory chips, also warned on Wednesday that its earnings wouldn't meet Wall Street's expectations. Analysts are expecting the company to earn 6 cents a share, while Silicon said its per-share figure should be break-even to 3 cents. Shares of Silicon Storage fell $1.53, or 14.3%, to $9.14 on the Nasdaq.