Investing.com -- While stocks on U.S. equities markets rallied on Thursday to pare earlier losses, it wasn't enough to halt a losing streak that extended to its fourth day.
One day after the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell into negative territory for the year, stocks on the Dow fell slightly again on Thursday. The Dow appeared headed for another triple digit loss in a volatile month of March, before the late rebound enabled it to close at 17,678.23, down 40.31 or 0.23%. The NASDAQ Composite index, meanwhile, fared better on Thursday than it did a day earlier when declines among semiconductors and biotech stocks caused its worst daily loss since last April. The NASDAQ, though, still fell 13.16 or 0.27% to 4,863.36.
The S&P 500 Composite index also lost 4.90 or 0.24% to close at 2,056.15, as stocks in Utilities, Consumer Services and Consumer Goods lagged. Only one sector, Basic Materials, closed in the green.
Shares in SanDisk Corporation (NASDAQ:SNDK), plunged more than 18% to 66.22 after the California-based flash memory storage solutions company's downward revisions of its first quarter earnings. SanDisk announced revenues of $1.3 billion for the first quarter, down from previous estimates of $1.4-$1.45 billion. The lower revenues were due to "product qualification delays, lower than expected sales of enterprise products and lower pricing in some areas of the business," the company said in a statement. SanDisk was the worst performer on both the NASDAQ and S&P 500.
The top performer on the Dow was International Business Machines (NYSE:IBM), which rose 1.39 or 0.87% to 160.59. The worst performer was American Express Company (NYSE:AXP), which lost 1.63 or 2.03% to 78.48 after analysts criticized the credit card giant for failing to adequately explain how it will offset the end of its 16-year relationship with Costco (NASDAQ:COST) at Wednesday's annual investor meeting.
The biggest gainer on the NASDAQ was Cognizant Technology Solutions (NASDAQ:CTSH), which rose 1.40 or 2.28% to 62.59, after posting strong quarterly earnings. VimpelCom (NASDAQ:VIP) joined SanDisk among the worst performers on Thursday. The Bermuda-based telecommunications service provider fell 0.32 or 5.70% to 5.29.
On the S&P 500, the top performer was Red Hat Inc (NYSE:RHT), which gained 6.91 or 10.09% to 75.36 after announcing impressive quarterly revenues. The Raleigh, N.C-based technology company also announced the start of a $500 million stock buyback program. CONSOL Energy Inc (NYSE:CNX) also joined SanDisk as one of the worst performers of the day. The coal and natural gas energy production company fell 1.62 or 5.58 to 27.40.