TECH STOCKS: Tech Sector Ends Day In The Red

By Rex Crum, MarketWatch

Netflix gains as sector ends day broadly lower

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Several Internet stocks closed with gains Thursday, but the tech sector ended the day in the red.

Among tech stocks that posted gains, Netflix Inc. (NFLX) rose 4.5% to close at $449.67. Chief Executive Reed Hastings garnered some attention when, in a post on Facebook, he said that Netflix surpassed HBO in terms of subscriber revenue in the previous quarter.

Gains also came from AOL Inc. (AOL), Priceline.com Inc. (PCLN), eBay Inc. (EBAY) and Microsoft Corp. (MSFT).

Security software company Symantec Corp. (SYMC) rose 1% to $23.97. Late Wednesday, Symantec reported a fiscal first-quarter profit of 45 cents a share, excluding one-time items, on revenue of $1.74 billion, while Wall Street analysts had forecast Symantec to earn 42 cents a share on $1.67 billion in sales.

Much of the sector rose early on upbeat reaction to the Labor Department's report that said initial jobless claims fell below 300,000 last week.

But decliners took over as trading progressed, with losses coming from Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ), Yahoo Inc. (YHOO), Oracle Corp. (ORCL) and Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN).

Online discount retailer Zulily Inc. (ZU) fell more than 6%, to $36.76 a share. Late Wednesday, Zulily reported a fiscal second-quarter profit of 6 cents a share on $285 million in revenue, while analysts had forecast earnings of 4 cents a share on revenue of $272 million. The company forecast third-quarter revenue in a range of $275 million to $287.5 million, while analysts had pegged sales at $283.3 million.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index (RIXF) ended the day down by 20 points at 4,334.

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