HEXUS.sharewatch: tech stocks hit by global wobbles

The general stock market situation hasn't been looking great for a while, but last week was the first time we've seen all our tech stocks in the red for some time.

The biggest underlying reasons seem to be a number of macroeconomic indicators that are making investors nervous. US growth is thought to be stalling, while Europe continues to be haunted by sovereign debt, with the possibility of yet another Greek bailout growing. On top of that, recent data showing a slow-down in Chinese exports point towards a general softening of the global economy.

A few individual companies fared especially badly last week. NVIDIA continues to suffer at the hands of a tepid Android tablet market, and it suffered an analyst warning last week on fears of disappointing Chinese GPU sales due to an increase in the number of Sandy Bridge integrated graphics systems being shifted.

Nokia suffered further, primarily due to a profit warning from Texas Instruments that pointed the finger as lower sales to the Finnish phone giant. Meanwhile markets seemed to be unimpressed by Apple's software launches, giving the gadget giant a rare negative week on the stock markets.