SAN FRANCISCO ? ?Facebook Inc. claimed the tech-sector spotlight in afternoon trading Tuesday as the world's largest social-networking firm introduced new search capabilities aimed at providing more information to its members.
At an event at Facebook's (FB) headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif., Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg and other executives unveiled the "graph search" function. The feature allows Facebook users to search content that has been shared by other friends on the social network. Graph search will initially encompass people, pictures and places and interests.
Zuckerberg said Facebook's graph search will let a user start with "a precise query and return to you the answer, not the links where you might get the answer."
Market reaction to Facebook's announcement was muted, as the shares fell 2% at $30.29. Online-review and recommendation company Yelp Inc. (YELP) was seen as suffering at the hands of Facebook's new initiative, as its shares fell more than 6% at $20.50.
Among other tech stocks, Dell Inc. (DELL) continued to flex its muscles, rising more than 5% to $12.91 a share on top of Monday's 13% gain. The advances came about after reports said the PC giant is in talks with two private-equity firms about going private. The Wall Street Journal reported that the companies in the discussions were TPG and Silverlake Partners.
Analysts that follow Dell said a buyout of the company is possible, but there are many hurdles to overcome if the world's third-largest PC company goes private.
"The likelihood is low, as it would take sizable financing for a company of Dell's size, with its $21 billion market cap," said Shaw Wu of Sterne Agee. "A deal of this size would likely involve multiple private-equity firms, and we estimate that the majority of [Dell's] businesses remain under structural and secular pressure."
Decliners still weighed on the overall tech sector, helping to push the Nasdaq Composite Index (RIXF) down by almost 14 points to 3,103. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOX) and the Morgan Stanley High Tech 35 Index (MSH) were also in the red.
Apple (AAPL) remained in the red, falling almost 3%, to $487.35 a share. On Monday, Apple's stock took a hit on reports that the company has put off orders for some parts for the iPhone 5 due to weaker-than-expected demand for the smartphone.
Nomura Equity Research analyst Stuart Jeffrey cut his December quarter iPhone sales estimates to 48 million from 50 million, and lowered his revenue forecast for Apple to $53 million from $54.2 million, saying that he still believes margins on the iPhone "are unsustainably high and will fall."
Research In Motion Ltd. (RIMM) was upgraded to a buy rating from underperform by Charter Equity on Tuesday. But shares of the BlackBerry maker were down after jumping more than 10% in the previous session.
In a note to clients, analyst Ed Snyder wrote that the "curb appeal" of the new BlackBerry 10 operating system expected to launch in the coming weeks "could help investors look past network-pricing issues." He cited his "preliminary review" of the new operating system, adding that with "a compelling user interface, 70K applications and RIM's hallmark QWERTY keyboard included in the SKU lineup, we believe the BB10 platform will appeal to a healthy percentage of the company's 80K subscribers, driving an upgrade cycle."
Still, RIM's shares pulled back by 3.4% to trade at $14.44.
Declines also came from Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ), Oracle Corp. (ORCL) and Nvidia Corp. (NVDA)
(NVDA)
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