U.S. stocks opened significantly lower on Thursday, loosing still more in late-morning trade with 10 of the 11 primary S&P 500 sectors in the red, MarketWatch reports.
The S&P 500 SPX (TIKER: SPX.INDEX) -0.41% fell 12 points or 0.5% at 2,456; the Dow Jones Industrial Average, -0.34% fell 100 points or 0.5% to 21,925; the Nasdaq Composite Index -0.64% dropped 46 points or 0.7% to 6,297.
One of the leaders in decline was Cisco Systems Inc. (TIKER: CSCO.NASDAQ) -3.66% which lost 3.8% which reported earnings that missed forecasts and predicted a drop in revenue next quarter.
The retail giant Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (TIKER: WMT.NYSE) -1.75% dropped 2% on the news of its Sam’s Club division lower-than-expected sales.
“Cisco is in the midst of a turnaround, and it is showing very slow progress in that, while Wal-Mart has had something like 12 straight quarters of revenue growth, which led to expectations getting a little ahead of themselves. They’re just taking a little bit of a step back, and so is the market,” said portfolio manager at Alpine Funds Mark Spellman.
The equity market was reacting to the Federal Reserve’s minutes from the July meeting.