Update at Market Close from Briefing.com by way of Yahoo!

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Close Dow -292.62 at 9485, Nasdaq -110.27 at 1672, S&P -39.47 at 1106: Cash is clearly king. Virtually every sector was down today as the Nasdaq set a low not seen since Oct 98. Rather than swapping into defensive sectors such as tobacco, food, beverages etc., investors are content to earn 5% in a money market fund and wait out the current malaise....

Techs were underwater all day. Kicking off the selling were six earnings warnings from enterprise software companies, most notably Ariba (ARBA). Many had hoped that worst case scenarios had already been priced into the group, but that was not the case. Also not helping was a bearish comment from Prudential on the PC group as that firm sharply cut estimates on four PC makers as it does not expect a meaningful snap back in demand in 2001...

Retail stocks started the day strongly, but were unable to fight off the pervasive negative sentiment in the market. Also, Prudential cautioned that March sales could come in weak especially at the department stores. On the positive side, an SEC filing reported that Warren Buffett has taken an 8-mln share position in Gap Stores (GPS). Also, Best Buy (BBY) beat fiscal Q4 estimates and guided up 2002 EPS...

Earlier in the session, chip and chip equipment stocks were rebounding from their recent carnage, but the SOX Index set a new 52-wk low...

Overnight, global equities were mixed as European stocks were down but the Nikkei was up...

Every sector was weak today, but software, PCs, storage and networking stocks were leaders for tech on the downside. Outside of tech, banks and brokerages were unable to benefit from positive comments from Salomon Smith Barney....

Traders did not step in heading into the close as the question now seems to be: Who will warn today after the bell? It's this fear that has raised the confidence of the shorts to not cover before the close. Also cementing short confidence is an upcoming weak earnings period and tax selling season. Briefing.com expects companies to use today's sell-off as an opportunity to warn figuring much of the bad news has been priced into their shares. S&P Midcap 400 -3.3%, DJTA -2.4%, DJUA -0.2%, Nasdaq 100 -7.8%, SOX -2.5%, Russell 2000 -3.1%, NYSE Adv/Dec 738/2351, Nasdaq Adv/Dec 779/2984

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