By Dan Gallagher, MarketWatch
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) - Tech stocks continued to gain
ground by Wednesday afternoon, with Groupon Inc. leading the way
following an appearance by CEO Andrew Mason at a technology
conference.
Meanwhile, Workday slumped nearly 5% ahead of its first earnings
report as a public company -- due after the closing bell.
Groupon Inc. (GRPN) was last up more than 5% to $4.16. This came
after an appearance by Mason that followed media reports of the
company's board of directors considering a change in the top
job.
Mason told the Ignition conference by Business Insider that "it
would be weird if the board wasn't discussing if I were the right
guy for the job." He noted that Groupon's stock has fallen about
80% since it went public in last November, but said, "If I ever
thought I wasn't the right guy for the job, I would fire
myself."
The Nasdaq Composite Index (RIXF) was up about 0.3% to 2,977 by
early afternoon, while the Morgan Stanley High-Tech Index rose
0.4%.
Apple (AAPL) shares slipped about 0.4% to $583. Another tech
hardware maker Dell (DELL) was down more than 1.5%. During the
previous trading session, various media outlets reported that Apple
fired an executive in charge of its mapping application that has
garnered poor reviews since its launch with the iPhone 5 in late
September.
The chip sector reversed from earlier losses, with the
Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOX) up by 0.6% with Advanced
Micro Devices (AMD) up nearly 4%. An analyst for Longbow Research
said sales of the new Wii u console from Nintendo could add between
$60 million and $90 million to the chipmaker's revenue in the
fourth quarter.
Analog Devices (ADI), fell nearly 1% after reporting a small
decline in earnings late Tuesday and issued a forecast that was
below Wall Street's estimates.
Several Internet firms picked up gains by midday. Google (GOOG)
was up 1% while Amazon.com (AMZN) rose about 0.6%. Cowen & Co.
picked both stocks as their favored in the sector in an initiation
note, setting neutral ratings on eBay (EBAY) , Netflix (NFLX) ,
LinkedIn (LNKD) , Yahoo (YHOO) and Pandora (P) .
Workday (WDAY) shares were down nearly 5% to $49.32. The
provider of cloud-based enterprise software will issue its first
earnings report this afternoon following its IPO last month.
Analysts expect Workday to report a third-quarter loss of 49
cents a share, on revenue of $64.05 million, according to a
consensus survey by FactSet. Total revenue for the same period last
year was $36.5 million, according to the company's filings with the
Securities and Exchange Commission.
"In our view, Workday is driving the transition to SaaS delivery
of [human resource] and financial applications and is increasingly
displacing stale and technologically limited on-premise
competitors," wrote Jason Maynard of Wells Fargo in a note to
clients on Tuesday.
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