Citigroup Inc. (C), JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM): Why the Dow Was Down More than 100 Points Earlier Today

And second, technology shares are down following Oracle Corporation (NASDAQ:ORCL)‘s earnings announcement last night. For the fiscal third quarter ended Feb. 28, the technology giant posted a 2% decline in new software sales and cloud-related subscription revenue. According to CNBC, this dramatically underperformed its previous estimates, which called for growth rates of 3% and 13%, respectively.

The impacts of this are being felt throughout the technology sector, which is down in aggregate by 1.3% in afternoon trading. “When you have a big company like that, it’s going to have a big impact on the sector,” an analyst at Wells Fargo & Co (NYSE:WFC) told The Wall Street Journal. It’s largely for this reason, in turn, that the three worst-performing components on the Dow today are all tech stocks: Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO), International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM), and Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE:HPQ).

With respect to Cisco, as my colleague Matt Thalman noted earlier, the two companies are close competitors in many of the same areas with similar products and services. Consequently, to echo Matt’s point, while “Oracle’s weak performance could mean that Cisco is gaining market share, but based on today’s stock performance … it’s safe to say investors feel that the market for these devices is weakening.”

The article Why the Dow Was Down More than 100 Points Earlier Today originally appeared on Fool.com and is written by John Maxfield.

John Maxfield has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Cisco Systems. The Motley Fool owns shares of Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase & Co (NYSE:JPM)., and Oracle.

Copyright © 1995 – 2013 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.