Tech: Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) Retreats, Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) Outperforms, Research In Motion Off Session High – ADTN, FNSR, CIEN, FSLR, STP

The tech sector is not performing well today as the broader market retreated as investors preferred to book some profit at the close of a robust third quarter for equities and amid uncertainty ahead of the results of stress tests on Spanish banks. Yesterday, the sector closed sharply higher with wider market rally after Spain's budget and reform plans had sparked a bullish note. Apple Inc.(NASDAQ:AAPL) and Facebook Inc(NASDAQ:FB) are moving in the positive direction today. NASDAQ Composite (INDEXNASDAQ:.IXIC) fell.48 -11.12 (-0.35%) at 3,125.

Apple Inc.(NASDAQ:AAPL) resumed downtrend after yesterday’s 2% gain. The stock is now 1.30% to $672.90, on track to post a 4% fall for the week. The stock has been showing selling pressure ever since it had reported lower than estimated weekend sales for its much hyped iPhone5 on Monday. Although numbers were quite good and hit another record level, but it didn’t meet analysts’ target, hence the stock discounted the news immediately.

Also, AAPL had been showing selling pressure on concerns that hat the company may not be able to meet the user’s demand for its latest launched iPhone5. 

Will AAPL Hit $1000 This Year? Don’t Miss Our Special Report here

Also, this morning, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s Mapping App A serious Drawback to the iPhone 5, this morning the company’s Chief Executive Tim Cook, on Friday, apologized to users of the iPhone 5 who have to contend with its flawed mapping application that contained grave errors.

There is no doubt that Apple as a popular carries heavy burden of high expectations from investors’ community, but that’s not the company fault. It’s just high expectations making investors easy.

Facebook Inc(NASDAQ:FB) is the big outperformer in today’s and moved back above its 50-day Moving Average. The company has now got into the e-commerce area with its gifting service.

Probably with an eye to the gifting-giving season that is round the corner, the social networking site launched the Gifts service on Friday. The feature is built upon and run by Karma, the company that Facebook had acquired in May.

Robert Hof, Forbes contributor, who was one of the privileged few to get the service (it is being offered to a select few) says that while the service looks good (in terms of the process), he may not really use it much due to the limited gifting options that it offers.

"A lot of the most prominent gifts are pretty vanilla–teddy bears, spa appointments, flowers, cupcakes," he says.

Will FB Rebound After The Recent Slump? Find Out Here

Research In Motion Limited (USA)(NASDAQ:RIMM) posted a second-quarter loss of $235 million, or 45 cents a share; a year ago, the company earned $329 million, or 63 cents a share.

On an adjusted basis, the loss was 27 cents a share, and although it was the company’s third straight quarterly loss, it was far narrower than Street estimates of an adjusted loss of 46 cents a share. Shares spiked after the report hit the market.

RIM closed up 1.16 percent after it had soared 17 percent to $8.37 i intra-day deals.

Revenue fell 31% to $2.9 billion from $4.2 billion a year ago.

Shares of RIMM jumped 7%, well off session high of $8.20.

Telecom equipment and optical component names slump as ADTRAN, Inc.(NASDAQ:ADTN) estimated third-quarter results below analyst expectations. The networking and communications equipment company said it has been hurt by a challenging spending environment stemming from macroeconomic and regulatory concerns.

Ciena Corporation(NASDAQ:CIEN) fell 3.40%, Finisar Corporation(NASDAQ:FNSR) slumped 6% and Juniper Networks, Inc.(NYSE:JNPR) lost 2.50%.

Suntech Power Holdings Co., Ltd. (ADR)(NYSE:STP) jumped 6%  following a report banks in the company's home town of Wuxi have extended $31.7M in in new loans. But shares are still trading at a mere $0.90 in the wake of a fraud scandal involving an affiliated investment firm. 

Also, First Solar, Inc.(NASDAQ:FSLR) retreated 3.50% after yesterday’s solid up move. This morning, r Maxim Group, which has issued plenty of bearish commentary about the company, declares speculation Fist Solar will be tapped to build out NextEra Energy 1GW Blythe solar project to be unfounded. Maxim argues a recent NextEra filing merely named First Solar, which has struck deals with NextEra in the past, as a potential partner. and that the utility only plans to build out 250MW of capacity by 2016-17.