Dell Whacks Tech ETFs
The tradable tech funds again led the
market lower Friday as a lowered outlook from Dell Computer combined with
uncertainty over presidential succession to trouble equities. What money
remained to seek out stocks headed for defensive areas, but the reflected gains
in exchange-traded funds remained weak.
The Utilities HOLDR
(
UTH |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) gained
1.7%, the sharpest gain among the exchange-traded
funds. The Dow Jones Utilities Index iShares
(
IDU |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) rose 1.0%. All
charts in this commentary use a logarithmic scale and 50-day moving averages
for price (red) and volume (blue).
The Utilities HOLDR’s weightiest
component, Duke Energy
(
DUK |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating), rose 1.2%. Among other components, Entergy
(
ETR |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
added 2.2%, Excelon
(
EXC |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) 1.4%, Reliant
(
REI |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) 2.2%.
Most of the gainers were held to
sub-1% advances, and those meager gains were largely in the defensive arena. The
Dow Jones Consumer Non-Cyclical iShares
(
IYK |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) picked up 1.2%, the Consumer
Staples SPDR
(
XLP |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating), 0.5%. The Pharmaceutical HOLDR
(
PPH |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) dog paddled,
closed up a scant 0.1%.
More blood and gore in the tech arena.
This time, the immediate scapegoat was Dell Computer
(
DELL |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating), which lowered
its sales outlook after Thursday’s close. Fore more on Dell’s trading action,
see my Trading
The News commentary.
 The Internet Architecture HOLDR
(
IAH |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) shed 7.0%, the day’s stiffest loss among the ETFs. The basket includes
Dell
(
DELL |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating), Apple Computer
(
AAPL |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating), Compaq
(
CPQ |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating), Gateway
(
GTW |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating),
Hewlett-Packard
(
HWP |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) and IBM
(
IBM |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating), all of which sold off on Dell’s
news and analyst concern of PC price wars.
The Semiconductor HOLDR
(
SMH |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) lost
6.2%, the Internet Infrastructure HOLDR
(
IIH |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) 5.9%, the Technology SPDR
(
XLK |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
5.5%, the Nasdaq 100 Tracking Stock
(
QQQ |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) 5.2%.
Carnage in the retailers
(
$RLX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
dragged down the Cyclicals-Transportation SPDR
(
XLY |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating). The ETF lost 4.3%.
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