Lacklustre earnings reports from Dow Jones industrials General Electric and Citigroup sent stocks nosediving on Wall Street today.

Shares in technology companies were flat to slightly lower midday in lacklustre rangebound trade as the heavyweight chip sector came under pressure following Applied Materials job cuts announcement despite a buoyant networking sector ahead of Cisco's results tomorrow, dealers said.

Shares in technology companies were slightly lower in midsession trade on profit-taking following three days of solid gains, dealers said.

`Technology shares were higher midsession as encouraging reports on the health of the economy prompted investors to snap up Nasdaq stocks, dealers said.