Oracle, Intel Lead Tech Stock Rebound After Coronavirus Slump
The stock exchanges soared Friday, erasing some of the sting of Thursday's nosedive, with multiple company share prices rising by double digits but Xerox nearly flat and HP down after Xerox's bid for HP was put on hold.
Tech stocks such Oracle and Intel soared Friday, giving IT company investors some good news for a week that saw steep market value losses.
The share price of nearly all the publicly-listed IT companies rose Friday along with the larger market driven in part by expectations throughout the day that U.S. President Donald Trump would declare a national emergency to combat the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, which he did just before markets closed.
Overall, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1,530 points, or 7.1 percent, to 22,730.14. The NASDAQ index rose 510 points, also 7.1 percent, to 7,712.10, while the S&A 500 rose 182 points, or 7.3 percent, to 2,662.32.
[Related: The Biggest Losing Tech Stocks In The Coronavirus Sell-off]
Friday was a huge contrast to Thursday, when panic caused by concerns about the COVID-19 coronavirus and about the Trump administration's response to it dragged the Dow Jones Industrial Average down 9.99 percent for its worst single-day drop since the 1987 stock market crash.
One of the big winners of Friday was Oracle, which saw its share price rise 20.43 percent to $47.93 a share. Oracle benefitted not only from the overall rise in share prices, but also by its release late Thursday of a very positive fiscal third quarter 2020 report that showed revenue for the quarter of $9.8 billion, up 3 percent. Revenue and non-GAAP earnings per share both beat analyst expectations.
Another big winner was Intel, which saw its share prices rise 19.52 percent to $54.43. The last day or so seen a trickle of details about the company's upcoming Comet Lake processors, and Intel on Friday told employees who could work from home during the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic should do so.
Share prices for Dropbox (+16.95%), Microsoft (+14.22%), NetApp (+13.62%), Cisco (+13.37%), Apple (+12.02%), and VMware (+10.25%) all did very well Friday.
Among the laggards Friday were Xerox, whose share prices rose a mere 0.25 percent to $23.96 per share, and Hewlett-Packard, whose 1.88-percent drop in share prices to $17.18 per share made it one of the very rare IT companies which saw share prices fall.
Xerox CEO John Visentin on Friday said in a statement that the company is for now pausing in its pursuit of an acquisition of HP.
"In light of the escalating COVID-19 pandemic, Xerox needs to prioritize the health and safety of its employees, customers, partners and affiliates over and above all other considerations, including its proposal to acquire HP," Visentin said in that statement.