Business Tech

Red ink flowed throughout the broader markets Thursday following unsettling news that General Motors auditors are casting doubt on the company's ability to survive..

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 281.40 points, or 4 percent, to 6,594.44, a low it hasn't seen since 1997.

The Dow's decline has been rapid. Just four trading days ago it was in the 7,000 range. And just 13 trading days before that it was in the 8,000s, where it languished for months.

The Nasdaq closed down 54.15 points, or down 4 percent, to 1,200, and the CNET Tech Index dropped 27.34 points, or 2.76 percent, to close at 962.74.

A few tech companies managed to swim against the tide.

Leap Wireless stock rose 4.47 percent to $28.27 a share. The company announced its wholly owned subsidiary, Cricket Communications, struck a deal with Samsung Telecommunications America, in which Samsung's SCH-r211 bar-style phone would be available to customers using Cricket's unlimited wireless services.

And Chinese Internet search company Baidu jumped 2.66 percent to $161.51 a share, after a Citi Investment Research analyst upgraded the company to a "buy" from a "sell," according to an Associated Press report. The analyst upgraded the stock based on weekly improvements to traffic on its site since January, according to the report.

Networking gear maker Ciena saw its stock jump 11 percent to $5.93 a share during the regular trading session Thursday, after announcing it would cut 200 positions, or 9 percent of its workforce, and close its research and development facility in Massachusetts.

That news apparently pleased investors, despite the company also reporting a 26-percent revenue drop in the first quarter over year ago figures and a net loss of $24.8 million, compared with a net profit of $28.8 million, during the same period.

Adobe Systems was another company that posted share price gains, despite issuing a first-quarter warning after the markets closed Wednesday. The software maker said it would miss its earlier revenue forecasts, but expected to remain on target with its profit projections.

Shares of Adobe advanced 3.68 percent to $16.92 a share on Thursday.

With the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling below the psychological watermark of 7,000 on Monday, investors may be wondering how it all stacks up against the stock market crash of the Great Depression.

It's not looking good.

In the here and now, the Dow has dropped 52.5 percent since its high of 14,279.96 on Oct. 11, 2007, to its low point of 6,779.62 during intraday trading on Monday. (Update 1:16 p.m. PST: At Monday's close it was 6,763.29, a drop of nearly 300 points from the previous close.)

And in taking a similar period of a year and five months in the late 1920s, it's a case of deja vu.

The rate of decline is mimicking that of the Dow during the Great Depression.

Back on September 3, 1929, the Dow hit a high mark of 381.17. And over a similar length of time, it fell 54.7 percent to 172.36 on January 2, 1931.

"It's very troubling if you have a mirror image," said Phil Dow, market strategist for RBC Dain Rauscher & James.

Helping to drive the Dow lower on Monday were tech titans IBM, which dropped 3.17 percent to $89.10 a share, and Hewlett-Packard which fell 3.72 percent to $27.96. Intel gave up 2.43 percent to $12.43 a share, while Microsoft gave up 1.80 percent to fall to $15.86 a share during intraday trading.

If the Dow continues to follow the rate of decline that it endured during the Great Depression, investors would have another year and four months before hitting rock bottom. Back in July 1932, the Dow fell 89 percent to 42.22 from its high.

RBC's equity strategist Dow said he believes distinctions exist between the current market malaise and that of yesteryear.

"There is an opportunity for a globally orchestrated recovery," Dow said. "This won't be the end of capitalism. At some point we'll reach the bottom in the housing market, people will start buying cars again, and inventories will be rebuilt."

Shares of Dell and Qualcomm plunged by double digits Monday, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average went into a free-fall of nearly 700 points on news that the economy is officially in a recession.

The Dow closed down 679.95 points, or 7.7 percent, to end the day at 8,149.09, breaking a five-day run at posting gains.

Meanwhile, the tech-heavy Nasdaq fell further, declining 8.95 percent, or 137.50 points, to end at 1,398.07. And the CNET Tech Index dropped 7 percent to 1,014.20.

Despite reports that retailers fared better than expected over Black Friday, PC maker Dell saw its shares give up 10 percent during the regular trading session to close at $10.05 a share.

Shares of Qualcomm dropped nearly 10.8 percent to $29.96 a share at the session's close, and Comcast stumbled 10.9 percent to end the day at $15.45 a share.

This post was updated at 1:26 p.m. PDT with to reflect the market's closing numbers.

The beleaguered Dow Jones Industrial Index surged back up above 9,000 in its largest single-day point gain ever Monday, while Apple, Microsoft, Dell, and other tech companies captured double-digit gains.

After taking investors on a hellacious ride last week, Wall Street didn't disappoint expectations of a better week with the Dow soaring 936.42 points to close at 9,9387.61, after suffering eight consecutive days of losses from its previous post of 10,850.66 on September 30.

Investors apparently were pleased with several new developments including the central banks agreeing to pump more funds into U.S. financial institutions and the U.S. Treasury agreeing to buy some bank stocks, as noted in posting on CBSNews.com.

The Nasdaq, which posted gains for the last couple of days, climbed 194.74 points to close at 1,844.25, in part fueled by double-digit gains from Microsoft, Apple, Oracle, Cisco, Dell, and Research in Motion. All these stocks were among the most actively traded on Nasdaq.

Microsoft climbed 18.6 percent to end the day at $25.50 a share, while computer makers Dell rose nearly 14.5 percent to $15.21 a share and Apple jumped approximately 13.5 percent to close at $110.26 a share.

Likely helping to push Apple's stock upwards is the company's plan to debut new notebook versions on Tuesday.

Other tech companies to keep an eye on this week are Intel and eBay, which are reporting earnings on Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively.

Oracle posted a 13 percent gain to close the regular trading session at $18.86 a share, while Cisco Systems ended the day up 11.8 percent to close at $19.27 a share. Research in Motion, maker of the popular BlackBerry smartphone, soared 15.5 percent to close at $63.87.

The CNET Tech Index, meanwhile, climbed as high as 139.10 points to close at 1,267.83 on Monday.