The Best (And Worst) Third-Quarter Technology Vendor Stocks

The Best (And Worst) Q3 Tech Stocks

It was a feast or famine third quarter for many tech vendors on Wall Street, where 16 of 35 companies tracked by CRN posted share losses during the quarter, including 10 that fell by at least 10 percent. On the other hand, 11 companies saw their stock price increase by at least 10 percent during the quarter. By comparison, the Dow Jones and Nasdaq indices increased 4.3 percent and 6.2 percent, respectively, during the third quarter.

Advanced Micro Devices

CEO: Rory Read


Sept. 28, 2012: $3.37
June 29, 2011: $5.73
Change: -41.2%


A tough quarter on Wall Street got even tougher on Sept. 18 when the company said CFO Thomas Seifert resigned, two months after the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based chip maker reported a drop in revenue. "Clearly, our performance in the quarter was disappointing and did not meet our commitments," said AMD CEO Rory Read in July.

Dell

CEO: Michael Dell


Sept. 28, 2012: $9.86
June 29, 2011: $12.51
Change: -21.2%


Last week, Dell wrapped up its acquisition of Quest Software, announced early in the quarter. Dell's stock closed below $10 on Sept. 25, the first time it closed below that mark since April 2009.

Quantum

CEO: Jon Gacek


Sept. 28, 2012: $1.61
June 29, 2011: $2.03
Change: -20.7%


Quantum shares lost 58 cents on July 10 after issuing disappointing earnings and closed as low as $1.20 on July 24 before regaining some momentum in the second half of the quarter.

Panasonic

CEO: Joe Taylor


Sept. 28, 2012: $6.57
June 29, 2011: $8.10
Change: -18.9%


Panasonic has been dropping headcount for more than a year, but the cost-cutting moves haven't satiated Wall Street, which led to Panasonic's shares dropping nearly 19 percent in the quarter and nearly 22 percent so far in 2012.

QLogic

CEO: Simon Biddiscombe


Sept. 28, 2012: $11.42
June 29, 2011: $13.69
Change: -16.6%


QLogic shares have been on a downward spiral the last two quarters. The company's stock closed at $17.76 on March 30. CEO Simon Biddiscombe no doubt hopes that trend might be reversed after QLogic previewed a new technology last month that puts high-speed SSD storage on a SAN host bus adapter to allow multiple servers to share their flash-based cache.

Websense

CEO: Gene Hodges


Sept. 28, 2012: $15.65
June 29, 2011: $18.73
Change: -16.4%


Websense shares fell $1.40 per share on July 25 and closed as low as $14.78 on Aug. 25 before rebounding back a bit. Early in the quarter, the San Diego, Calif.-based company led by CEO Gene Hodges rolled out 10 new areas of advanced malware protection, data theft prevention, spear phishing protection with cloud sandboxing and a new forensic reporting dashboard.

Lexmark International

CEO: Paul Rooke


Sept. 28, 2012: $22.25
June 29, 2011: $26.58
Change: -16.3%


Lexmark shares closed as low as $16.54 on July 24 but they gained $2.57 back on Aug. 28 after CEO Paul Rooke said the company planned to lay off 1,700 employees and exit the inkjet business.

Hewlett-Packard

CEO: Meg Whitman


Sept. 28, 2012: $17.06
June 29, 2011: $20.11
Change: -15.2%


Investors continue to react cool to CEO Meg Whitman. The company's stock has dropped for three straight quarters after closing at $25.76 at the end of 2011. In September, reports surfaced that HP may be shopping its EDS business to private equity.

Intel

CEO: Paul Otellini


Sept. 28, 2012: $22.66
June 29, 2011: $26.65
Change: -15.0%


The decline of Intel shares in the quarter was a slow, steady descent. Its Sept. 25 close of $22.55 was its lowest since last December. Meanwhile, the company looks to regain momentum with new "Clover Trail" processors for tablets.

FalconStor

CEO: James P. McNiel


Sept. 28, 2012: $2.35
June 29, 2011: $2.61
Change: -10.0%


FalconStor shares closed as low as $1.73 on Aug. 16 before rising above the $2 mark again in mid-September. Still, the company's stock is down 10 percent in the third quarter.

Citrix Systems

CEO: Mark Templeton


Sept. 28, 2012: $76.53
June 29, 2011: $83.94
Change: -8.8%


Citrix started and closed the quarter in a poor way. The company's shares fell $6.33 on July 5 and lost almost $5 per share in the last week of September. Still, its stock finished better than the $69.33 the company closed at on Aug. 1. Through the first nine months of 2012, Citrix shares are up 26 percent.