San Francisco-based PG&E Corp. (PCG) showed the largest drop of the day among local stocks tracked by the Examiner, falling 5.48 percent by the market’s close. Mountain View-based Verisign Inc. (VRSN) and San Francisco-based Salesforce.com (CRM) also experienced significant drops of more than 5 percent.

Gains today were small, with top performer Maxim Integrated Products Inc. (MXIM), based in Sunnyvale, rising only 0.04 percent and Santa Clara-based Nvidia Corp. (NVDA) staying flat.

The markets dropped sharply today, with the Dow Jones falling 263.14 points, or 2.6 percent and the Nasdaq fell 2.25 percent. The S&P 500 was down 2.64 percent.

Companies in the news included Redwood City’s Electronic Arts (ERTS), which reported a second quarter loss, according to Reuters, and Google Inc. (GOOG), which reported a new deal signing Myspace on to its platform allowing outside developers to write programs for social networking sites.