Technology stocks take sharp dive

Investors appear to have lost their love affair with technology and Internet-related stocks, marked by the nearly 35 percent drop from its high in March of this year. Technology bellwethers such as Yahoo!, Intel and Lucent Technologies have been hit especially hard by the continued sell-off.\nAmazon.com: down 75 percent from high\nAmazon.com has been downgraded in recent months as Wall Street is beginning to question the company's business plan and whether or not it will be able to turn a profit. New concerns about increased costs during the holiday season have further worried analysts, according to Bloomberg News. Last June an analyst at Lehman Brothers, an investment bank in New York, released a scathing report attacking the ability of Amazon.com to pay its debt in the future. \nDell: down 50 percent from high\nDell Computers made an early announcement that its fourth quarter earnings would fall below analyst estimates. Dell spokeswoman Neisha Frank said the unusually early meeting had nothing to do with the announcement, but that it coincidentally happened at the semi-annual analyst meeting.\nIntel Corp - down 47 percent from high\nThe corporation recently announced earnings will be below expectations because growth and demand for its chips is slowing. To add insult to injury, Intel's biggest rival, AMD, reported record sales as demand for its Athlon brand of chips doubled from last year. The increasing popularity of AMD's chips are allowing major computer manufacturers to shop around, Merrill Lynch analyst Joseph Osha said. \nLucent Technologies: down 72 percent from its high\nThe continuous and painful plunge of Lucent was described as, "one of the worst pieces of management in the history of the business world," Uri Landesman, a fund manager at AFA Partners, said. The company lowered earnings three times this year, causing over $150 billion to be shaved off of its market capitalization.\nYahoo!: down 76 percent from its high\nYahoo! recently announced its earnings beat estimates, but it has been far from immune to investors' sell-off of anything to do with the Internet. Reports of slower growth in online advertising have also put downward pressure on the stock. "We had an indication that the dot-com advertising slowdown is real," said John Corcoran, an analyst with CIBC World Markets. Advertising revenues account for over 80 percent of Yahoo!'s revenue, according to Knight Ridder Tribune Services.