US technology stocks extended their losses in late morning trading on Wall Street today as investors fretted over a barrage of earnings warnings and a big jump in the inflation rate last month.
Some of the tech sector's marquee names Nortel Networks, Dell, and Hewlett-Packard sent a shiver through Wall Street with gloomy forecasts for near term growth.
The technology-packed Nasdaq Composite Index slid 113.08 points, or 4.43 per cent, to 2,439.83. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 78.87 points, or 0.72 per cent, to 10,812.15.
Canada's Nortel - the world's leading supplier of fiber-optic telecoms equipment - cut its forecast for growth in revenue and earnings for 2001 by about half due to the US economic downturn.
Nortel slumped $9.67 to $20.08 after dipping as low as $19.50, a level not seen since September 1999, and the selling bled over to shares of other high-speed communications-related companies.
Dell, the world's second largest PC maker, fell $1.25 to $23.25 after posting its first-ever large-scale layoffs. It also cut its earnings forecast for the current quarter, amid an industry-wide slowdown.