{"id":15135,"date":"2018-03-29T13:49:00","date_gmt":"2018-03-29T21:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/tech-stocks-have-lost-some-of-their-luster-dragging-the-stock-market-lower\/"},"modified":"2018-03-29T13:49:00","modified_gmt":"2018-03-29T21:49:00","slug":"tech-stocks-have-lost-some-of-their-luster-dragging-the-stock-market-lower","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/tech-stocks-have-lost-some-of-their-luster-dragging-the-stock-market-lower\/","title":{"rendered":"Tech Stocks Have Lost Some Of Their Luster, Dragging The Stock Market Lower"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Jim Zarroli<\/a><\/span> <\/p>\n

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\n The Nasdaq composite index, which includes many tech stocks, has lost nearly 7 percent since March 12.<\/p>\n

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Timothy A. Clary\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

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Timothy A. Clary\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

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Tech stocks were a growth engine for the market when the economy was tepid, but recently they’ve been sputtering and their troubles are helping drag the entire market lower. <\/p>\n

Some of the biggest names in technology have been swooning.<\/p>\n

Facebook is mired in a scandal over a breach of its user data<\/a>, leading to calls for stricter government regulation of the social media giant. Since the beginning of February, its shares have dropped from $193 to $159 \u2014 a nearly 18 percent dive.<\/p>\n

Amazon has been targeted in tweets by President Trump. On Thursday, he said<\/a> the online retailer pays “little or no taxes” and is “putting many thousands of retailers out of business.” Amazon’s shares are still up a lot for the year, but they’re down by more than 9 percent since March 12.<\/p>\n

Apple, which faces questions about its growth strategy, is down about 8 percent since the same date.<\/p>\n

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The downturn has swept through the tech sector, dragging down companies that include IBM and Microsoft. The Nasdaq composite index, which includes many tech stocks, has lost nearly 7 percent over the same period. By comparison, the broader Standard and Poor’s 500 index is down 5.5 percent.<\/p>\n

“The market has a psychology right now of, ‘When in doubt, get out. We’ll figure out later what happened,’ ” says Julianne Niemann, a financial analyst at Smith Moore.<\/p>\n

The slide is remarkable because tech stocks have long been seen as growth leaders, and investors have for the most part eagerly piled into them.<\/p>\n

“If you think about social media, if you think about e-commerce, basically technology is the backbone for all of those different things, and for these corporations it’s driven incredible profit growth,” says Sameer Samana, global equity and technical strategist at Wells Fargo Investment Institute.<\/p>\n