TECH STOCKS: Apple Losses Stand Out As Tech Stocks Suffer

By Rex Crum, MarketWatch

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Tech stocks started the week on a rough note Monday as Apple Inc. led most of the sector into the red with investors concerned about economic issues in China.

Apple (AAPL) shares gave up 2.7% to $402.49. Before the start of trading, Jefferies & Co. analyst Peter Misek cut his price target on Apple's stock to $405 a share from $420. In a research note, Misek also lowered his iPhone sales estimate for the third quarter of the year to 27 million units from 30 million.

"We remain cautious on Apple as it fills in its product gap" with what Misek estimates will be a 5-inch screen iPhone 6 next year. Misek also said that checks in the smartphone industry indicate longer inventory levels for mobile-network carriers, suggesting that products are sitting on the shelves longer than anticipated.

Nearly every other major tech stock also lost ground Monday. Google Inc. (GOOG) was down almost 2%, at $866.67, even though J.P. Morgan analyst Doug Anmuth raised his price target on the company's stock to $1,025 a share from $860 on overall positive sentiment for the company's business efforts.

Among other leading tech stocks, Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ) and EMC Corp. (EMC) each fell 2%, Facebook Inc. (FB) was down by 3.7%, Netflix Inc. (NFLX) shed 3%, Salesforce.com Inc. (CRM) was off by more than 4% and Intel Corp. (INTC) gave up more than 2%.

The main source of the decline was reaction to fears about a cash crunch in China, which sent that nation's top stock index down by more than 5%.

The Nasdaq Composite Index (RIXF) fell almost 60 points, or nearly 2%, to 3,297, and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOX) gave up 2.2%.

One bright spot was Stec Inc.(STEC), which saw its shares almost double, to $6.70, after hard disk-drive maker Western Digital Corp. (WDC) said it would acquire the maker of solid state drives for $340 million, or the equivalent of $6.85 a share.

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