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Techs tucker out
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June 25, 1999: 4:20 p.m. ET
Technology shares close out week with loss after Internets lag
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - Technology shares couldn't keep up their momentum and ended the Friday session lower on interest rate worries and lagging Internet issues.
The technology barometer Nasdaq composite index fell 1.33 to 2552.66, according to preliminary results, losing steam after a strong morning push.
Internet shares were particularly hurt Friday as investors couldn't seem to get their minds off the Federal Reserve, which will meet next week to decide interest rate policy.
"The market is still very nervous about the higher interest rate environment," said Peter Coolidge, senior equity trader at Brean Murry & Co.
The lack of conviction could continue even past next week, Coolidge said. "It's not only the threat of the rate hike next week, but looking down the road if there will be a rate hike a month or two later."
The Internet sell-off was widespread, ranging from retailers to online brokers to Internet service providers.
Amazon.com (AMZN) shares lost 3-7/16 to 110-3/16 and eBay (EBAY) dropped 6-1/8 to 136. Charles Schwab (SCH) was down 3 to 89-1/4, Mindspring (MSPG) lost 4-9/16 to 77-9/16 and Earthlink (ELNK) shed 3/4 to 60-3/4.
America Online (AOL) shares fell 3-3/4 to 103 Friday. The company is currently in talks with sub-$1,000 personal computer maker MicroWorkz about marketing opportunities between the two companies.
Additionally, AOL revealed it had bought a 10 percent equity stake in China.com, a Chinese portal scheduled to take itself public on Wall Street next week.
Microsoft (MSFT) shares traded higher Friday, rising 5/16 to 84-15/16. The software company's antitrust trial with the U.S. government closed Thursday, but published reports said the two sides recently began talking settlement.
Neither the government nor the company would confirm that any talks were taking place, but they would be the first such discussions since March. For now, both sides are awaiting Aug. 10, the deadline for submitting proposed findings of fact.
IBM (IBM) rose slightly, up 9/16 to 123-1/8 after it announced it would cut 1,100 jobs from its California server disk drive operations.
Big Blue plans to move most of disk drive business to Japan in hopes of standardizing development and speeding up its delivery to the marketplace.
Data and communications equipment company Lucent Technologies confirmed Friday that it would buy privately held Nexabit Networks for approximately $900 million.
The deal will give Lucent Nexabit's Internet speed switching equipment capabilities. Although the deal had been rumored on Wall Street, as recently as Monday Nexabit officials had been saying they would continue with plans to go public.
Lucent (LU) shares slipped 1/2 to 63-1/2.
Finally, networking equipment company Juniper Networks probably couldn't have expected a much warmer greeting for its initial public offering on Friday.
Juniper's (JNPR) shares started off priced at 34 but shot up to 106 at one point, before settling back to a comfy 98-7/8, up 64-7/8, at Friday's close.
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