Thursday's Tech Winners & Losers
Tech stocks mostly traded flat Thursday despite blockbuster earnings from sector giant
Research In Motion
(RIMM)
.
BlackBerry maker RIM gained $7.06, or 6.1%, to $122.80 after the company blew past analysts' estimates for the fourth quarter and guided higher than expectations for the current quarter. Net income for the fourth quarter jumped 120% to $412.5 million, or 72 cents a share, while revenue rose 102% to $1.88 billion.
Analysts polled by Thomson Financial were expecting revenue of $1.85 billion and earnings of 70 cents a share. For the current quarter, RIM forecast revenue in the range of $2.23 billion to $2.3 billion, and EPS in the range of 82 cents to 86 cents -- higher than analysts' consensus of $2 billion in sales and EPS of 75 cents.
Micron Technology
(MU) - Get Report
added 30 cents, or 4.7%, to $6.69 after an analyst at Goldman Sachs upgraded the stock to a neutral from sell
based on
valuation and improved outlook for the DRAM memory market. However, the company
missed analysts' estimates
for its earnings report Wednesday as its second-quarter loss widened and lower flash memory prices hurt sales.
GPS-based navigation devices maker
Garmin
(GRMN) - Get Report
stumbled after the company's CFO was
reported saying
first-quarter revenue would possibly be lower than expected. In an interview with
Reuters
, Garmin CFO Kevin Rauckman said first-quarter revenue could drop between 40% and 50% from the fiscal fourth quarter, which saw gains from holiday sales. Shares of Garmin were down $2.17, or 3.8%, to $54.22
Cisco
(CSCO) - Get Report
lost 70 cents, or 2.8%, to $24.25 after the stock was downgraded by an analyst at UBS to neutral from buy on the belief that orders for the company's products are slowing both in the U.S. and Europe.
(GOOG) - Get Report
lost $11.81, or 2.5%, to $453.99. The company said earlier today that it will sell
DoubleClick's
search engine marketing business to eliminate any impression of a
conflict of interest
. Google had acquired DoubleClick for $3.2 billion last year. Google is also reportedly 300 jobs at DoubleClick as part of its acquisition integration efforts.
Semiconductor company
MEMC Electronic Materials
(WFR)
fell $2.61, or 3.4%, to $73.83 after the company lowered its first-quarter revenue outlook. MEMC said it expects revenue of about $500 million and gross margin of 52%, compared with its earlier forecast of $560 million and gross margin of 54.2%.