(Bloomberg) -- Bullish investors had significantly less to celebrate in the latest round of earnings from computer and software makers.
Quarterly reports spurred after-hours share declines that approached 10 percent in a handful of well-known stocks, among them Symantec Corp., Yelp Inc., FireEye Inc. and GoPro Inc. With Tesla Inc. also down, only a relatively buoyant quarter at Facebook Inc. was preventing bigger trauma in ETFs tracking the industry.
The results are a turnaround from last week, when earnings from Amazon.com, Alphabet and Microsoft sent the Nasdaq 100 Index to its biggest rally relative to the S&P 500 in eight years. Wednesday's results reflected volatility more typical of the second and third rung of technology firms, where little ripples in demand enact instant punishment in the market.
“This is an exceptionally strong quarter in terms of earnings growth, and the companies that show disappointing results are taken out to the woodshed,” said Phil Orlando, chief equity strategist at Federated. “The bar is rather high. Companies like Tesla that failed to deliver are getting punished badly.”
To be sure, Wednesday's blow-ups were setbacks in otherwise up years for the stocks. Symantec was up 35 percent in 2017 as of Wednesday's close, FireEye was up 38 percent, while Yelp had risen 21 percent and GoPro 23 percent.
Yelp, whose fourth-quarter revenue forecast missed estimates, lost as much as 17 percent after the close of exchanges. FireEye, whose fourth-quarter sales forecast was mostly below views, slid as much as 16 percent. GoPro projected sales in the holiday quarter that missed the average of analysts. Its shares tumbled 7.9 percent as of 5:08 p.m. in New York.
Symantec retreated as much as 11 percent in after-market trading after cutting its adjusted earnings per share forecast for the year and reporting quarterly per-share earnings that missed estimates.
For now, buttressed by Facebook, Qualcomm and reports President Donald Trump plans to name Jerome Powell the next Fed chairman, the effect on the broader market was muted. An exchange-traded fund tracking the Nasdaq 100 Index traded at $151.95, down about 0.2 percent from the close. The index of the so-called FANG stocks rose 0.8 percent to close at a record high.
“From a price action perspective, it will be important to see how these tepid results affect last week's breakout,” said Frank Cappelleri, a senior equity trader at Instinet LLC. “Given this, it be interesting to see how much patience traders show tomorrow with Apple reporting after the close.”
Qualcomm, the manufacturer of digital wireless communications equipment, rose 5.9 percent in post-market trading after reporting fourth-quarter adjusted revenue that exceeded analysts' estimates.
Facebook was up a penny at 5:21 p.m. after reporting another quarter of record sales, underscoring how far removed the social network's business prospects are from the raging public debate about Russian political ads on its platform. Revenue rose 47 percent to $10.3 billion in the third quarter, compared with the $9.84 billion analysts expected on average.
“You have to ask yourself, is that enough to carry the sector?” said Quincy Krosby, chief market strategist at Prudential Financial Inc. “The market has been watching Facebook and then it'll focused on Apple. And then again these Facebook numbers fit in with the mega tech names that are just basically giving this market momentum.”
To contact the reporters on this story: Elena Popina in New York at epopina@bloomberg.net, Sarah Ponczek in New York at sponczek2@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jeremy Herron at jherron8@bloomberg.net, Chris Nagi
©2017 Bloomberg L.P.
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