Stocks Fall On Negative Gdp Report

Tech slides after Oracle Corp. posted worse-than-expected numbers.

NEW YORK — Wall Street sank in volatile trading Thursday after the government confirmed that the last quarter of 2007 did indeed see a sharp economic slowdown.
The technology sector was particularly weak after business software maker Oracle Corp. posted worse-than-expected fiscal third-quarter sales and issued a cautious forecast.
Meanwhile, data suggesting that Google Inc.’s revenue from Internet users’ clicks could slow also raised worries about tech stocks.
Financial stocks lost ground Thursday as well, with investors uncertain about what is in store for the economy and the troubled financial sector.
“GDP was in line, so we’re still expanding, even though we’re expanding at a very small rate,” said Dave Rovelli, managing director of U.S. equity trading at Canaccord Adams.
While it wasn’t enough to propel stocks higher, investors appeared pleased by the Labor Department’s report that the number of workers seeking unemployment benefits fell last week by a seasonally adjusted 9,000 to 366,000.
Though the weekly figures can be volatile, the reading was better than the 371,000 many economists predicted.
George Shipp, chief investment officer at Scott & Stringfellow, said investors generally remain uneasy about whether they have an accurate read on the scale of the troubles in the financial sector and to what degree the parade of write-downs on bad investments might continue.
“It’s hard to imagine there is going to be any good news. The question is whether it’s been discounted,” he said, referring to another round of potentially weak results from big banks in the coming months.
“The market is groping for a bottom. It’s a difficult time.”