Semiconductor Sector Hit Hard on Down Day for Markets

Earnings spook chip investors; AMD is off 6%, Micron drops 7.5%.
By Chris Frankie ,

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.

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