Uninspiring earnings reports, and worries about the European economy, made Wall Street a bit jittery today. As a result, the S&P 500 Index (^GSPC 0.02%) sold off slightly, losing 2.7 points, or about 0.2%, to close at 1,509. Of course, those modest losses start to look appealing compared to what the S&P's three biggest losers gave up today.
Shares in Akamai Technologies (AKAM 0.42%) dropped like a rock Thursday, plunging 15.2%, after a very disappointing earnings report, where the company failed to meet revenue estimates, and guidance was below expected levels. The Cambridge-based company facilitates more rapid delivery of web content and, although shareholders have made money in the last one-, three-, and five-year periods, the stock is prone to sudden jumps and crashes.
Today's second largest laggard was another tech company, Teradata (TDC 0.95%), which also fell after its quarterly earnings announcement. Teradata's 7.1% stumble today exemplified a few of the counterintuitive aspects to the stock market. The first stems from the fact that the company is consistently ranked as a global leader in innovation and customer satisfaction for the services it provides. The second is that Teradata actually beat top- and bottom-line estimates today; all it took was a weaker revenue forecast than Wall Street expected to drive the stock down.
LSI (NASDAQ: LSI) rounds out the last of today's underperformers, posting losses of 4.1% on Thursday. The semiconductor company has had a worse 2013 thus far than the broader market, having taken a slight cut to its market cap, while the S&P has actually gained 5.8%. With worries about the growth in the semiconductor business, LSI will have to prove its worth by "showing investors the money" when its next earnings call comes around.
