TECH STOCKS: Apple Losses Stand Out As Tech Stocks Slump

By Rex Crum, MarketWatch

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Just one day after tech stocks showed signs of rallying, a broad market slump hit the tech sector Thursday and dragged down the shares of nearly every major tech bellwether, including Apple Inc.

Apple (AAPL) fell almost 4%, to close at $97.87 as the company tried to allay concerns about the iPhone 6 Plus being susceptible to bending easily.

Apple said that it has received just nine complaints about the iPhone 6 Plus bending in the front pockets of its users. Apple called the iPhone warping issue "extremely rare".

The bent iPhone issue came on top of Apple saying on Wednesday that it had pulled an update to its recently released iOS 8 operating system following complaints that the update caused certain functions of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus to not work properly.

In addition to Apple, Pandora Media Inc. (P), SanDisk Corp. (SNDK), Yelp Inc. (YELP) and EMC Corp. (EMC) each ended the day down by at least 3%.

Electronics contract manufacturer Jabil Circuit Inc. (JBL) saw its shares shed more than 2% to close at $20.39. On Wednesday, Jabil reported better-than-expected quarterly results.

The Nasdaq Composite Index (RIXF) skidded early and never recovered. By the time the market closed, the tech-heavy market gauge had fallen 88 points, or almost 2%, to close at 4,466. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOX) was also bruised, and also gave up almost 2% on the day.

The broader market decline came as the monthly durable-goods report showed orders for U.S. products fell more than 18% in August after what had been a 22.5% gain during July. Much of the decline was due to orders for airplanes, which are volatile.

(Read more about the day's market action in Market Snapshot http://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-stocks-futures-slip-ahead-of-durable-goods-data-2014-09-25.).

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