MARKET CLOSE: Tech exodus continues

It was more of the same Tuesday as investors continued to dump technology stocks, sending the Nasdaq composite down 146 points to a 52-week low of 2,734.98. The Dow Jones industrial average lost 38 points to finish at 10,507.58.

"We're more worried about the economy and how it's going to affect corporate earnings then who our next president will be," said Arthur Hogan, chief market analyst at Jefferies & Co. "Starting next week, we'll start hearing feedback from companies about fourth-quarter earnings."

In economic news, the Conference Board reported consumer confidence for November came in at 133.5, weaker than expected, and below the October number of 135.8.

Virtually every tech sector absorbed sharp losses Tuesday.

Microsoft (MSFT) fell $3.69 to $67. Oracle (ORCL) lost 47 cents to $22.66 and Sun Microsystems (SUNW) finished off $6.94 to $81.25.

Veritas Software (VRTS) slid $6.97 to $99.03 after it received a thumbs up from analysts Tuesday following the completion of the company's cash and stock deal that privatized Seagate Technology.

Among widely held PC stocks, Dell (DELL) lopped off $2 to $22.44; Gateway (GTW) lost $1.10 to $31.05; Apple Computer (AAPL) shed 66 cents to $18.03 and Compaq Computer (CPQ) closed off $1.66 to $23.15.

Arrow Electronics, Inc. (NYSE: ARW) gained 56 cents to $23.44 after it said it is comfortable with the original fourth-quarter earnings expectations of $1.07 a share.

Catapult Communications (Nasdaq: CATT) rose $2.31 to $13.31 after raising its forecasts for the current and second quarter, as well as fiscal year 2001.

Broadcom Corp. (Nasdaq: BRCM) shed $12.50 to $85.06 after it said it will snap up Israeli-based VisionTech Ltd., a supplier of digital video/audio MPEG-2 compression and decompression chips for 7.96 million shares, or about $776 million based on Monday's closing price.

Intel (INTC) lost $1.88 to $42.06. Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) chopped off $1.31 to $17.69 and IBM (IBM) dipped 25 cents to finish at $98.19.

Internet stocks were roughed up too as Yahoo! (YHOO) and Amazon.com (AMZN) fell $3.16 and $2.97 a share, respectively. America Online (AOL) lost $3.41 to $40.56. eBay (EBAY) trimmed $2.16 to $36.03 and CMGI (CMGI) closed off $1.09 to $10.53.