HEXUS.sharewatch: Cisco plunges on weak outlook

Networking giant Cisco announced its quarterlies on Wednesday last week. While revenues and earnings for the quarter were a bit above expectations, its outlook for the rest of the 2011 financial year fell well short of what analysts had hoped.

The reasons given were weakening public sector spend, a weakening set-top box market and general weakness in Europe. As a result, not only did Cisco's shares plunge by almost 20 percent when trading commenced on Thursday, but markets on the whole got gloomy.

Only a couple of shares escaped the general sell-off. NVIDIA announced its quarterlies at the end of the week and CEO Jen-Hsun Huang was quite bullish. Investors seems to be convinced by his promises that NVIDIA's mobile chip - Tegra - is finally set to deliver and its shares rose. The other minor gainer was Intel, which announced it was going to increase the dividend it pays on its shares.

The other thing that is likely to be spooking investors is the increasing likelihood that Ireland will have to call upon the EU bail-out fund, and the financial contagion that may well cause. The worry is that weaker Euro countries, such as Greece, Ireland and Portugal, may well drag down the big players, like Germany, with their inability to pay their debts.