By Dan Gallagher, MarketWatch
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) - Tech stocks turned from earlier
losses to some mild gains by midday Wednesday, led by upticks in
the semiconductor and Internet groups that was offset by declines
among hardware makers such as Apple Inc. and Dell Inc.
Meanwhile, shares of Groupon Inc. (GRPN) picked up a small gain
of 2% to $4.05 during an appearance by CEO Andrew Mason at a
technology conference in New York that followed media reports of
the company's board of directors considering a change in the top
job.
Mason told the Ignition conference by Business Insider that "it
would be weird if the board wasn't discussing if I were the right
guy for the job." He noted that Groupon's stock has fallen about
80% since it went public in last November, but said, "If I ever
thought I wasn't the right guy for the job, I would fire
myself."
The Nasdaq Composite Index (RIXF) was up about 0.2% to 2,973 by
midday, while the Morgan Stanley High-Tech Index was roughly
flat.
Apple (AAPL) shares slipped about 0.6% to $581. Another tech
hardware maker Dell (DELL) was down more than 1.5%. During the
previous trading session, various media outlets reported that Apple
fired an executive in charge of its mapping application that has
garnered poor reviews since its launch with the iPhone 5 in late
September.
The chip sector reversed from earlier losses, with the
Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOX) up by 0.5% with Advanced
Micro Devices (AMD) up nearly 4%. Analog Devices (ADI), fell by 1%
after reporting a small decline in earnings late Tuesday and issued
a forecast that was below Wall Street's estimates.
Several Internet firms picked up gains by midday. Google (GOOG)
was up 1% while Amazon.com (AMZN) rose about 0.5%. Cowen & Co.
picked both stocks as their favored in the sector in an initiation
note, setting neutral ratings on eBay (EBAY) , Netflix (NFLX) ,
LinkedIn (LNKD) , Yahoo (YHOO) and Pandora (P) .
Workday (WDAY) shares were down 2.5% to $50.52. The provider of
cloud-based enterprise software will issue its first earnings
report this afternoon following its IPO last month.
Analysts expect Workday to report a third-quarter loss of 49
cents a share, on revenue of $64.05 million, according to a
consensus survey by FactSet. Total revenue for the same period last
year was $36.5 million, according to the company's filings with the
Securities and Exchange Commission.
"In our view, Workday is driving the transition to SaaS delivery
of [human resource] and financial applications and is increasingly
displacing stale and technologically limited on-premise
competitors," wrote Jason Maynard of Wells Fargo in a note to
clients on Tuesday.
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