Late Market Roundup (PNM, KBH, LEN, INTC, DELL, STX, ORCL, AKS)

Shares of residential builders, including Pulte Group PNM, KB Home KBH and Lennar Corp LEN, dropped about 4% after analysts Joshua Pollard and Anto Savarirajan of Goldman Sachs downgraded the sector from “attractive” to “neutral.” The analysts were concerned about a slow economic recovery in the US and mentioned, "A looming slowdown in U.S. growth and correspondingly sluggish home sales is not a backdrop for outperformance." Most US tech stocks remained in the positive territory after the Federal Reserve announced that it had decided not to make any changes to its monetary policy at its June 22-23 meeting. Fed policy makers believe that the rate of economic recovery in the US is slower than expected. The top gainers in the sector were Intel Corp INTC, Dell Inc DELL, Seagate Technology STX and Oracle Corp ORCL. US major carriers will start reporting their Q2 results next week. Wall Street is expecting the carriers to post strong profits, as against the losses suffered nearly two years ago. According to Derchin, an analyst at CRT Capital Group LLC, the combined sector is likely to report a rise of about 20% in Q2 revenue, with a 2.5% increase in traffic demand. He mentioned, "Airline managements are in the early stages of focusing on more stable, profitable business models capable of producing higher returns over a full economic cycle." Shares of AK Steel Corp.AKS gained more than 7% to lead the S&P 500 (SPX) gainers after Goldman Sachs upped the rating of the stock from “neutral” to “buy.” According to the analysts, falling prices of iron ore in China will help AKS, while pressurizing the company’s peers. The analysts have forecasted a strong recovery in AK Steel’s earnings in the medium term. Read more from Benzinga's Markets.