Tech Stocks Tank on Economic Crisis, S&P Downgrade

I'll bet Facebook and Zynga are glad they haven't gone public yet. LinkedIn LNKD is among the many tech companies taking significant losses following today's unparalleled crisis. As of this writing, the popular social networking has been hit by an 18% decline. Granted, LinkedIn was downgraded on Friday by both Morgan Stanley and Evercore Partners. But that didn't stop Bank of America from increasing its price target on the very same day. J.P Morgan awarded LinkedIn with a price target increase of its own. But at a trading price of roughly $76, LinkedIn is unlikely to reach the $108 PT that Bank of America anticipated. Youku.com YOKU, which has been running into trouble after its F1 was amended last week, is down 6%. The perpetually imperiled Research in Motion RIMM has been reduced by approximately 6% as well. AOL AOL, a company with employees that like to burn a little money, is faced with a decline of nearly 4%. Electronic Arts ERTS, which launched a new service and appointed a new COO last week, is taking a small hit today with more than 7% dropping off its shares. After beating analyst estimates last week, you might have thought that Activision ATVI could weather this storm. But that isn't the case, as the company is down roughly 3.4%. THQ THQI, which suffered a major sell-off earlier this year, has lost another 7.5%. Investors that took BMC's recommendation to hold on to shares of Take-Two Interactive TTWO might be frustrated by the firm's loss of more than 7%. Meanwhile, Sony SNE, which made the questionable choice to delay the PS Vita until 2012, is taking a hit in the neighborhood of 3.7%. Heavy hitters like Google GOOG and Microsoft MSFT are suffering as well, each dropping 3% and 2%, respectively. Cisco CSCO just lost a little over 5%. Apple AAPL, the can-do-no-wrong company (well, not entirely), is down nearly 4%. Chances are this decline has nothing to do with Operating Systems Solution, the latest company to sue Apple over patent infringement. Even companies that sell technology are taking a hit. Best Buy BBY, which seems to be in a battle every week, is down 4% today. Nearly 8% has been shed from GameStop's GME share price. Amazon AMZN, a company that's often viewed as an impervious entity, is down 4%. Of course, tech companies are far from the only ones that are suffering. Goldman Sachs GS and JPMorgan Chase & Co. JPM are experiencing declines this afternoon. Citigroup C is having an especially bad day with a loss of more than 13%. Wells Fargo WFC has dropped nearly 6%. This lawsuit between American International Group AIG, which is down more than 9%, and Bank of America BAC, which is down a whopping 18%, is sure to make things worse. Follow me @LouisBedigian