Cisco Systems Inc. fell. 7 percent to $23.85 with 22,100,800 shares traded. Clearwire Corp. fell. 7 percent to $3.38 with 38,395,800 shares traded. Facebook Inc. fell. 8 percent to $25.46 with 19,868,000 shares traded.
NetApp Inc.' s shares rose Thursday on a report that hedge fund Elliott Management is pushing for major changes at the data storage company. THE SPARK: A report by Bloomberg, citing an unidentified person familiar with the situation, said Elliott has proposed new directors for NetApp's board and has asked the company to return cash to shareholders.
*Wal-Mart falls after earnings miss. Cisco Systems led gains in both the Dow and Nasdaq Composite with a 12 percent surge after the network equipment maker posted a higher-than-expected quarterly profit and said current-quarter revenue could increase. Cisco shares shot up 12.3 percent to $23.82 after hitting $24.24, the highest since November 2010.
Cisco Systems Inc. rose 11.9 percent to $23.73 with 119,731,100 shares traded. DryShips Inc. rose 10.6 percent to $2.07 with 18,990,600 shares traded. Facebook Inc. fell 1.4 percent to $26.24 with 22,260,700 shares traded.
*Halliburton and Caterpillar rise after results. Caterpillar Inc and Halliburton ranked among the S&P 500' s biggest gainers after reporting results. Caterpillar's stock gained 2.6 percent to $82.55.
BOSTON, Jan 7- Warning to investors: major U.S. technology companies could miss estimates for fourth-quarter earnings as "fiscal cliff" worries likely led some corporate clients to tighten their belts last month and refrain from spending all of their 2012 IT budgets.