Tech stocks mere passengers in Thursday's downhill ride

This is based on an initial, somewhat superficial look at Thursday's stock tumble, but it's hard to say tech stocks played all that much of a role in the plunge. Many of them lost a little ground but didn't get hammered like some among the Dow industrials, which ended up almost 300 points lower at the end of their second-worst trading day of the year. Most of the selling was said to be prompted by concerns over weakness in the housing market and grim prospects for buyout financing.

As of about 4:30 p.m. East Coast time, for example, the tech-heavy Nasdaq was down 48.83 points, or 1.84 percent, to 2599; the Dow had lost 306.62 points, or 2.22 percent, and landed at 13,478.45. Apple (on Nasdaq) managed a more-than 5 percent climb while Google, Microsoft and Oracle (all on Nasdaq) and Sony (NYSE) dropped anywhere from just under 1 percent to just over 2.5 percent. Bets are the sellers will take a break Friday and the bargain hunters will do their thing.