Tech worries hurt Wall St

New York - US stocks drifted downward for a third straight session on Friday, with the tech sector in focus after weak results from computer maker Dell on the heels of a downgrade of key semiconductor stocks.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 13.98 points (0.14 percent) in closing trades to 10 318.46 on volatile trading.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 11.92 points (0.55 percent) to 2 146.04 and the broad-market Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 3.53 points (0.32 percent) to a provisional close of 1 091.37.

Stocks started off the last trading day of the week on a bearish note after Dell reported late on Thursday that quarterly net profit declined 54 percent and revenue dropped 15 percent.

The news coming a day after a Bank of America Merrill Lynch's downgrade of eight microchip companies, including Intel and Texas Instruments, kept the market jittery.

Joseph Hargett of Schaeffer's Investment Research said the technology sector was "in trouble" as the market opened as "traders reacted negatively" to Dell's third-quarter earnings report which missed expectations.

"What's more, Dell's miss arrives on the heels of Bank of America's downgrade of several semiconductor stocks on Thursday," he said.

Analysts at Charles Schwab & Co said traders "continue to rein in risk appetites" while grappling with whether the economic recovery from recession can continue without major problems.

They said economic data this week had done little to soothe recovery concerns, with a slightly hotter-than-expected reading of prices at the consumer level, a smaller-than-expected increase in industrial production, unexpected declines in both housing starts and building permits, and a jobless claims report that failed to drop below the 500 000 mark as some had hoped.

- AFP