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Stocks Snap 3-Day Streak; Techs Skid

Published: Wednesday, 18 Nov 2009 | 5:41 PM ET

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By: Cindy Perman
CNBC.com Staff Writer

Stocks snapped a three-day winning streak on Wednesday after a report showed housing starts fell sharply in October and weak outlooks from two software firms.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 lost 0.1 percent. The tech-heavy Nasdaq tumbled 0.5 percent.

Major U.S. Indexes

.DJIA

.NCOMP

.SPX

Techs, which have been an investor favorite as of late, took a hit after engineering-software maker Autodesk [ADSK Loading... ()] delivered a weaker-than-expected outlook and customer-relations software maker Salesforce.com [CRM Loading... ()] reported a slowdown in new business. The stocks dropped 10 percent and 3 percent, respectively.

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Housing starts unexpectedly fell 10.6 percent to their lowest level in six months, weighed down by a sharp decline in construction activity for both single-family and multi-family dwellings.

At the same time, the consumer price index rose 0.3 percent, indicating that inflation may not be quite as benign as some economists have indicated.

HP [HPQ Loading... ()] was the biggest drag on the Dow, down 1.6 percent, while Bank of America [BAC Loading... ()] was the biggest gainer.

Bank of America rose 3.7 percent after billionaire hedge-fund manager John Paulson said he expects the stock to double in the next few years.

Techs finished mostly lower but AMD [AMD Loading... ()], which announced a private debt offering of $500 million, and Analog Devices [AMD Loading... ()], which was put on Goldman Sachs' "conviction buy" list, advanced.

In other analyst action, Collins Stewart reiterated its "buy" rating on Microsoft [MSFT Loading... ()].

Dell [DELL Loading... ()] rose 0.7 percent ahead of the computer maker's quarterly results, due out Thursday.

An interesting twist in the Cadbury [CBY Loading... ()] saga: Hershey [HSY Loading... () ] is reportedly considering a joint bid with Italy's Ferrero, famous for its Nutella spread and Ferrero Rocher choclates, for the British chocolatier. Up until now, Kraft Foods [KFT Loading... () ] was the only bidder but Cadbury wasn't happy with the offer.

In other M&A news, American Express [AXP Loading... () ] agreed to buy Internet-payment company Revolution Money for $300 million.

Colgate shares [CL Loading... () ] jumped over 3 percent amid buzz that UK consumer-products compan Reckitt Benckiser, which owns the Lysol brand, may be considering a bid for Colgate. In addition to its namesake toothpaste, Colgate owns brands including Softsoap and Palmolive.

And Delta Air Lines [DAL Loading... () ], along with its alliance partners, is offering $1 billion to Japan Airlines to sway the money losing carrier from its affiliation with American Airlines [AMR Loading... () ].

Retail earnings have been in focus this week as the holiday shopping season approaches.

BJ's Wholesale [BJ Loading... () ] shares fell nearly 2 percent after the warehouse-club operator reported its quarterly profit dropped 37 percent and said pricing has been "extremely aggressive" heading into the holiday season.

Limited Brands [LTD Loading... () ] will have its quarterly numbers after the closing bell.

JCPenney [JCP Loading... () ] announced plans to stop publishing its twice-yearly "big book" catalog as more consumers are doing their shopping online.

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Toyota [TM Loading... () ] posted its first year-over-year global sales increase in October in 15 months, with sales rising 5 percent.

Gold settled at $1,141.20 a troy ounce, after setting a new high above $1,151, as the CPI report stirred inflation worries.

Oil settled above $79 a barrel, after earlier surpassing $80, after a report showed crude supplies fell by 900,000 barrels last week — three times of what was expected.