U.S stocks took a dive after hardware giant Dell reported slow growth in Q2, and cut its forecast for the next quarter. Dell’s net income rose by 63 percent compared to the same period last year, but revenue only rose by a mere one percent due to weakening PC demand.  The company also scaled back its forecast for Q3 to 1%-5% from 5%-9%, which resulted its stock declining 10.1 percent.

This slide made investors lose confidence in the rest of the market, too. Forbes reports:

“Investors punished Dell to the tune of a 10.1% drop Wednesday, and a number of other technology stocks seemed to suffer from guilt by association as Hewlett-Packard fell 3.7% and Intel lost 0.6%.”

HP’s rating was cut from “market perform” from “outperform” at BMO Capital Markets. Microsoft lost 0.4 percent, and Apple declined 0.1 percent.

Dell’s slow down, along with a with a warning from fed officials Charles Plosser and Richard Fisherabout about too much stimulus being funneled into the economy drove an even broad market decline. Eighteen stocks fell for every 17 that gained, and tech shares dropped the most compared to the rest of the S&P 500 groups.

Dell grew on the enterprise front, but low PC sales hammered that growth. This helped flame a wave of investor uncertainty that extended to the rest of the market – quite different from what happened even when Cisco had its earnings call.

Cisco has seen a steady decline for several consecutive quarters, but reported a slight improvement in revenue and profits from its fourth fiscal quarter. The company beat forecasts with revenue of $11.2 billion, representing 3.3 percent year-over year growth, and net income of 40 cents a share. This helped boost its own stock by 15 percent and the Nasdaq by 53 points. Juniper Networks also gained after the call, along with the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index and the Morgan Stanley Index.