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Despite an emergency interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve Board, technology, telecom and chip maker stocks stumbled badly coming out of the gate Jan. 22.
In mid-morning trading, Google was down more than $20 per share in a 3.3 percent slide to $579.44 a share. Microsoft fell almost 3 percent to $32 a share, while Cisco Systems was down 3.2 percent to $23.54 and Intel tumbled by 2.4 percent to $18.57. Yahoo was spared some of the bleeding on rumors that it is planning layoffs but still fell 1.35 percent to $20.20 a share.
Telecom stocks were faring even worse, with AT&T off almost 5 percent to $34.25 a share and Verizon plunging 4.14 percent to $37.40 a share. Sprint fell 3.8 percent to $8.35 and Qwest was down 3.7 percent to $5.20.
Overall, the Dow was down 142.5 points (1.18 percent) to 11,956.80 and the NASDAQ fell 48.61 (1.97 percent) points to 2,290.60.
Officials in the tech sector have maintained the collapse of the subprime mortgage market would have little or no effect on tech stocks, but the widespread sell-off Jan. 22 called those predictions into question.