TECH STOCKS: Sony Rises After PlayStation 4 Launch; Techs Wobble

By Rex Crum, MarketWatch

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Sony Corp. was one of the few gainers among tech stocks Monday after the consumer electronics company reported upbeat initial sales for its new PlayStation 4 gaming console in the U.S. and Canada, as much of the sector followed the social-media sector to close in the red.

Sony (SNE) closed with a gain of 1.2%, at $18.72 a share in the wake of last Friday's launch of the PlayStation 4 in most of North America. Sony said it sold more than 1 million of the gaming consoles in the first 24 hours after going on sale.

But few other tech stocks managed to withstand a market selloff that shaved almost 37 points, or nearly 1%, off the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index (RIXF), which closed at 3,949.

Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) shares fell by nearly $3, to $366.18. Evercore Partners analyst Ken Sena raised his price target on Amazon's stock to $450 a share from $400 due to what he sees as higher value coming from the company's Amazon Web Services business.

Social-media stocks had some of the day's biggest losses, as Barron's warned of a bubble in the sector in an article over the weekend.

Yelp Inc. (YELP) slumped almost 9%, to $64.43; Facebook Inc. (FB) fell by 6.5% to close at $45.83; Pandora Media Inc. (P) ended the day down by almost 6% to close at $29.71, and Twitter Inc. (TWTR) gave up 6.5% to end the day at $41.14.

Wunderlich Securities analyst Blake Harper started coverage of Twitter with a sell rating and $34-a-share price target. Harper called Twitter "a great company," but with an "overvalued stock."

Other losses came from Yahoo Inc. (YHOO), Google Inc. (GOOG) and Apple Inc. (AAPL).

Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), which holds its annual shareholders meeting on Tuesday, was off by 1.7% to close at $37.20 a share. Analysts at Bank of America/Merrill Lynch cut their rating on Microsoft's stock to underperform, or the equivalent of sell, from neutral due to concerns about who may replace Chief Executive Steve Ballmer at the software giant.

Nvidia Corp. (NVDA) gave up 2.4% to close at $15.78 a share after Morgan Stanley analyst Joseph Moore cut his rating on the graphics chipmaker to underweight.

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