The Wall Street Journal reports,"Monday's 1.2% drop in the tech-oriented index highlights a broad reassessment of risk amid uneven economic signals and subdued expectations for the coming first-quarter earnings season. The Nasdaq Composite shed 47.97 points, to 4079.75, down 4.6% over the past three trading sessions.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbled 166.84 points, or 1%, to 16245.87. The S&P 500 fell 20.05 points, or 1.1%, to 1845.04. All three indexes are now in negative territory for the year.
The Nasdaq, widely viewed as a gauge of the tech sector, is off 6.4% from a 52-week high hit on March 5. Since then, components Netflix is off 25%, Facebook is down 20% and Amazon.com has slid 15%.
At the same time, investors continued flocking to larger, more-mature companies that pay dividends as a hedge against market and economic uncertainty. Intel and Cisco Systems were among the Nasdaq gainers Monday, up 1.2% and 0.6%, respectively.
The action underlines concerns about the pace of economic growth following sharp share-price gains in 2013 and questions about the valuations on many young, fast-expanding companies. A host of economic indicators have disappointed the most-bullish investors in recent weeks.
Mr. Santini portfolio manager at CLS Investments in Omaha, Neb., has been selling shares of First Trust Dow Jones Internet Index Fund ETF, which holds stocks such as Facebook and Amazon, since the start of the year. Instead, he has been buying the First Trust Nasdaq Technology Dividend Index Fund ETF, which holds Intel and Oracle.
The declines in shares of faster-expanding companies highlight the premium investors have begun placing over the past month on firms that have strong records of profitability and tend to perform well even when the economy slows. Microsoft and Cisco each are up 4% since March 5.
On Monday, financial and consumer-discretionary stocks also declined, pointing to investor fears that corporate profits could fail to meet Wall Street estimates. Alcoa is due to post results Tuesday and banks J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and Wells Fargo & Co. on Friday.
Money that had flooded into biotech ETFs is bolting out now. On Friday alone, $372 million poured out of the market's largest biotech ETF, the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology IBB +0.67% ETF, the biggest one-day outflow ever for the fund, according to BlackRock. The recent reversal comes after months of inflows. Some $8.4 billion piled into health-care and biotech ETFs from the start of 2013 through March, according to fund tracker Lipper, compared with about $8.9 billion absorbed by traditional mutual funds.
The Nasdaq Biotechnology Index has dropped 18% since hitting an all-time high on Feb. 25, while the Nasdaq Internet Index is down 17% since its record reached on March 7".
