NASDAQ

HOW QUICKLY THE mighty techs have fallen. The Nasdaq had been enjoying an incomparable run in 2007, rising more than 18% to a peak of 2859 on Halloween. Through a turbulent year the tech-heavy composite index was beating the Dow Jones Industrial Average by nearly seven percentage points and the broader market by more than nine. Subprime landmines and $100 oil be damned; life in the tech sector was good. So it's something of a shock that investors who were giving thanks for techs would find November to be so frightening. The Nasdaq has plunged 8% this month, most of that coming just this week. All equity markets are in a bad way right now, but the tech index is getting hammered significantly harder than the Dow or the S&P 500, leaving investors to sort out whether the Nasdaq is just oversold or, more dreaded, that the flight to tech is over. First, a word on how we got to this point so rapidly. The cow that kicked over the lantern in the barn was Cisco Systems (CSCO: 28.58, -1.05, -3.54%). It all started with the company's first-quarter earnings report after the markets closed Wednesday. "Although they had an in-line report, they didn't do better than expected, so that was a disappointment," says Art Hogan, chief market economist at Jefferies & Co. "And even more disappointing was the revenue guidance. So [Thursday] and [Friday] we're really feeling the spillover effect of 'Wow, if it's bad for Cisco, it's bad for a lot of people.'