My office is right by Mercury Interactive and the Veritas offices of Symantec. It was a bad day for the stocks of both companies:
A 19.3 percent drop in Symantec’s shares took the Cupertino security-software maker off the list of the valley’s 10 most valuable tech stocks. Symantec stock fell $4.63 to $19.37 after the company cut its financial forecast and announced the surprise retirement of its chief financial officer. Symantec completed its $10.2 billion acquisition of Veritas Software in July.
Symantec rival McAfee, a Santa Clara maker of anti-virus software, dropped $3.15, or 10.6 percent, to $26.70.
Mercury Interactive, a Mountain View company that makes software to test computer programs, plunged $9.34, or 26.7 percent, to $25.66 for the worst performance in the S&P 500. Chief Executive Amnon Landan, Chief Financial Officer Douglas Smith and General Counsel Susan Skaer resigned after an internal investigation of the company’s stock-option practices.