It’s official. The National Bureau of Economics announced the U.S. is in a recession and has been since this time last year. A new report issued Monday showed manufacturing activity stands at 26-year lows and the jobs report on Friday will likely surge as a result of several recently announced layoffs.
Investors responded to the news and reports with a selling frenzy. By the time the closing bell rang Monday, the Dow posted its fourth-worst one-day point decline on record. This year also saw the two worst one-day point declines, the most recent of which was September's 778-point drop. In terms of market history, the index's plunge was the 12th worst in history.
As a category, technology stocks were down 7.1 percent.
Leading technology vendor stocks tracked by Channel Insider plummeted 20 percent overall with only two companies posting single digit gains. The top five stock drops included Nortel (NYSE: NT) -52 percent, Seagate (NASDAQ: STX) -43 percent, AMD (NYSE: AMD) -43 percent, VMWare (NYSE: VMW) -42 percent and Sun Microsystems (NASDAQ: JAVA) tumbled 38 percent.
Leading solution provider stocks dipped only 6 percent with five companies posting minimal gains. The largest drop in the last thirty days ending December 1 was Bearing Point at -81 percent. Rounding out the top five loss leaders Unisys (NYSE:UIS) dropped 66 percent, Insight (NASDAQ: NSIT) 64 percent, Citigroup Transaction Services (NYSE:C) 53 percent and Office Depot (NYSE:ODP) 49 percent.
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