China cut its economic growth target from 8% to 7.5% Monday, tripping up the markets as a whole and knocking around Chinese stocks, as well as commodities and equipment manufacturers.
The Dow Jones Industrials and S&P 500 each finished fractionally down, and the Nasdaq lost more than 1% Monday. A number of Chinese stocks finished lower, including online media company Sina (NASDAQ:SINA, -4.2%) Internet provider Baidu (NASDAQ:BIDU, -3.4%), telecoms China Unicom (NYSE:CHU, -2.5%) and China Telecom (NYSE:CHA, -1.3%) and oil and gas firm PetroChina (NYSE:PTR, -2.4%). The iShares FTSE/Xinhua China 25 Index (NYSE:FXI), which tracks Chinese equities, was down about 2.7%.
Other companies hit on the news were miner Freeport-McMoRan (NYSE:FCX, -3.8%), U.S. aluminum giant Alcoa (NYSE:AA, -3.6%) and equipment manufacturers Joy Global (NASDAQ:JOYG, -4%) and Caterpillar (NYSE:CAT, -2.1%).
A number of semiconductor companies also dropped Monday. Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE:AMD) and Micron (NASDAQ:MU) were each down more than 5%, NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) lost 3.4% and Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) declined 1.4%.
Internet radio company Pandora (NYSE:P) was up about 5.5% on news that a Stifel Nicolaus analyst upgraded shares from hold to buy and set a price target of $18 — the company’s shares opened around $14.60. Pandora gained 8% last week, giving a boost to the Social Stock Tracker. It reports earnings Tuesday.
Three Up
- Broadvision (NASDAQ:BVSN): Up 12.9% ($5.79) to $50.73.
- NutriSystem (NASDAQ:NTRI): Up 6.1% (68 cents) to $11.88.
- Molycorp (NYSE:MCP): Up 4.1% ($1.01) to $25.56.
Three Down
- Polypore International (NYSE:PPO): Down 9.7% ($3.87) to $35.91.
- US Airways (NYSE:LCC): Down 8.4% (64 cents) to $6.99.
- Patriot Coal (NYSE:PCX): Down 7.7% (53 cents) to $6.36.
Kyle Woodley is the assistant editor of InvestorPlace.com. As of this writing, he did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities. Check out recaps from previous trading days here.
