Ten Stocks Falling on Collapse in PC Shipments (HPQ, DELL, MSFT, INTC, AMD, NVDA, MRVL, STX, WDC, EMC)

Among the obvious stocks hurt by the collapse are PC makers Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ), Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL), Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT), Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC) and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NYSE: AMD). The drop in sales probably hit Microsoft worst of all this morning, after the company’s stock was downgraded to Sell by analysts at Goldman Sachs. There are several other stocks, though, that will be hurt by the fall in PC sales.

Chip stocks that are taking some lumps today include Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ: NVDA), down about 2%, and Marvell Technology Group Ltd. (NASDAQ: MRVL), down about 1%. Nvidia’s graphics chip business and Marvell’s disk drive controller shipments are both in jeopardy from falling PC shipments.

Disk drive makers Seagate Technology PLC (NASDAQ: STX) and Western Digital Corp. (NASDAQ: WDC) are both being hit by the lack of PC shipments. Seagate’s shares are down 3.8% and Western Digital’s shares are down about 3% this morning. Storage systems giant EMC Corp. (NYSE: EMC) is down less than 1%, but its business depends less on PC sales than on sales of servers and mainframe computers.

HP’s first quarter shipments were down by 23.7% year-over-year in the first quarter, according to IDC, while Dell shipments fell nearly 11%. Among other PC makers, Acer’s shipments fell more than 31%, and Asus shipments dropped nearly 20%. Not a pretty picture.

Microsoft shares have been hit hard, down 5% to $28.78, in a 52-week range of $26.26 to $32.89. An IDC executive noted, “[T]he Windows 8 launch not only failed to provide a positive boost to the PC market, but appears to have slowed the market.” That’s terrible news for the software giant that cannot seem to break into the smartphone and tablet markets and grab any kind of serious market share.

HP’s shares are down about 6%, at $20.96 in a 52-week range of $11.35 to $25.40. The company managed to hold off Lenovo to maintain its position as the world’s largest PC maker, but that is probably cold comfort today.

Dell is down just 0.5%m at $14.14 in a 52-week range of $8.69 to $16.61. Dell’s price is propped up by the outstanding buyout offer from founder Michael Dell and his partners. But the company’s largest business is clearly in serious trouble.