By Rex Crum, MarketWatch
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Tech stocks were mostly in the
red Monday, with Google Inc. among decliners as chairman Eric
Schmidt plans to sell a large piece of his company holdings.
Google (GOOG) shares were down almost 1% at $778.48 after
Schmidt said in a filing on Friday with the Securities and Exchange
Commission that he is plans to sell as much as 3.2 million share of
Google stock, representing about 42% of his holdings in the
company. The sale would be worth $2.5 billion.
Dell Inc. (DELL) remained near its breakeven line, up by 2 cents
at share at $13.65. The PC giant looked to defend its plans to go
private when, on Monday, it said in an SEC filing that the deal
moves the risks of the business from shareholders to the investors
leading the buyout, including Chief Executive Michael Dell.
Dell put the statement out after Southeastern Asset Management,
Dell's biggest institutional shareholder, came out against the
plans to take the company private.
BlackBerry (RIMM) shares fell almost 5%. Home Depot (HD) said it
would replace 10,000 BlackBerry smartphones used by its store
managers and corporate staff with Apple iPhones.
Other losses came from Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ), Facebook Inc.
(FB), Oracle Corp. (ORCL) and International Business Machines Corp.
(IBM)
(IBM)The Nasdaq Composite Index (RIXF) slipped 10 points to
3,184, while the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOX) dipped into
the red.
AOL Inc. (AOL) was on the rise, its shares up 7%, at $36.07. RBC
Capital Markets analyst Mark Mahaney raised his rating on the
online media company's stock to outperform from sector perform.
Mahaney cited AOL's fourth-quarter earnings report, in which
year-over-year revenue rose for the first time in eight years,
among the reasons for his upgrade.
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