PowerShares QQQ (NasdaqGM: QQQ) pared its gain Wednesday in the final hour of trading as components Research in Motion (NasdaqGS: RIMM) and Apple (NasdaqGS: AAPL) capped the Nasdaq-100 exchange traded fund’s advance.
RIM shares were in negative territory Wednesday as BlackBerry users were experiencing another day of outages.
Research in Motion stated Tuesday that regular texting services returned to normal, but the company later said that disruptions were ongoing, reports Joseph Woelfel for TheStreet.
RIMM was down 1.6% at last check — the company makes up 0.5% of QQQ.
The provider warned clients of outages in the Americas and promised that it is working on restoring service in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and India, report Georgina Prodhan and Alastair Sharp for Reuters.
“The messaging and browsing delays … were caused by a core switch failure within RIM’s infrastructure,” the company said on Tuesday. “As a result, a large backlog of data was generated and we are now working to clear that backlog and restore normal service.”
“It’s a blow upon a bruise. It comes at a bad time,” said Richard Windsor, global technology specialist at Nomura. “One possibility could be that it encourages client companies to look more at other options such as allowing users to connect their own devices to the corporate server and save themselves the cost of buying everyone a BlackBerry.”
Companies are already encouraging employees to use alternative smartphones such as Apple’s iPhone. [Apple’s Bounce at 200-Day Average Powers Nasdaq ETF]
Apple shares represent nearly 15% of QQQ and are the ETF’s top holding. [Nasdaq ETF Rides Apple in Break Above 200-Day Average]
The stock weakened late Wednesday but stayed in the green. Apple said orders for the iPhone 4S topped 1 million in the first day.
PowerShares QQQ
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Max Chen contributed to this article.