TECH STOCKS: Groupon Slumps After Earnings

By Rex Crum, MarketWatch

Sprint falls after ending T-Mobile bid

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Groupon Inc. and Sprint Corp. were two of the biggest losers in the tech sector Wednesday after the online daily deal company released disappointing earnings and Sprint said it would drop plans to acquire T-Mobile.

Groupon (GRPN) fell 18% to $5.81 a share, after it reported Tuesday a second-quarter profit of a penny a share, excluding one-time items, on $751.6 million in revenue. While Groupon's earnings met Wall Street analysts' forecasts, its sales fell short of the consensus estimate of $762 million.

Groupon also said that for its third quarter it expects to break even or earn up to two cents a share, on sales in a range of $720 million to $770 million. Analysts surveyed by FactSet had forecast Groupon to earn 3 cents a share on $760 million in revenue.

Mobile-phone network operator Sprint (S) slumped by almost 17% to $6.07 a share after it scrapped its effort to acquire T-Mobile (TMUS) and said it would replace Chief Executive Dan Hesse with Marcelo Claure, a billionaire investor who previously ran mobile-phone distributor Brightstar Corp. T-Mobile shares fell almost 9% following the announcements.

Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp. (CTSH) was also in the red, falling more than 15%, to $42.31, after the IT services company cut its revenue growth forecast for the year.

Gains came from Netflix Inc. (NFLX), Oracle Corp. (ORCL), Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) and Facebook Inc. (FB).

AOL Inc. (AOL) rose by 5%, to $40.96 a share, after the online media company reported a 12% increase in quarterly revenue, led by advertising sales of $451.7 million.

More must-read news from MarketWatch:

Sprint ends its pursuit of T-Mobile, changes CEO

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