Just as tech stocks were starting to rise this week, dismal PC sales reports for the first quarter burst the very short-lived bubble, causing shares of IT companies to fall back to earth Thursday.
As market indices hit milestone after milestone this year, PC stocks have lagged behind. This week, however, tech stocks climbed and led the markets to record highs Wednesday. After the markets closed, though, the bad news came: both Gartner and IDC reported a nosedive in first quarter PC sales.
IDC said the 13.9 percent year-over-year drop in PC sales was the worst decline it has seen since it started tracking the PC market in 1994. Both Gartner and IDC noted it was the fourth consecutive quarter of declining PC sales.
On Thursday, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Standard and Poor’s 500 index hit yet new nominal (not adjusted for inflation) highs, the Nasdaq Computer Index dropped 0.79 percent. Some of the biggest losers were companies with exposure to the PC market. Hewlett-Packard dropped US$1.44 to $20.88, Microsoft fell $1.35 to $28.93 and Intel declined $0.43 to $21.83.
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