Tuesday's Tech Stocks: Investors Take Greenspan's HintTuesday's Tech Stocks: Investors Take Greenspan's Hint

Way to go, Mr. Chairman.

Stock markets plummeted Tuesday after Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, testifying before the Senate Banking Committee, seemed to hint that higher interest rates might be on the way. Stocks had been up for much of the day, but they turned sharply lower in the last hour, following Greenspan's testimony.

Although Greenspan made no specific comments about whether the Fed will raise interest rates soon, he said deflation is no longer a threat to the U.S. economy and that the banking system is prepared for higher interest rates. Some observers interpreted those seemingly benign comments as an indication that the Fed might raise interest rates sooner rather than later--and the sell-off was on.

Technology stocks, particularly shares in chip makers, were hard hit. Shares of Lucent Technologies dropped 8.5%, to $3.89, despite the company's report of increased earnings and an improved outlook for all of 2004. Intel was down more than 2%, to $26.07. The Nasdaq-100 tracking stock closed at $35.96, down 57 cents, or more than 1.5%, on fairly heavy trading volume of more than 95 million shares.

Our information 100 index fell 5.84 points, or more than 1.7%, Tuesday to close at 326.38, while the Nasdaq composite fell 41.8 points, or more than 2%, to 1,978.63. The Dow fell 123.35 points, or nearly 1.2%, to close at 10,314.5, while the S&P 500 fell also--17.73 points, or more than 1.5%, to finish the day at 1,118.09.

See the full listing of all the companies in the information 100 and the top 5 percentage winners and losers for the last closing at http://www.information.com/stock.