Dow recovers; techs up and down
Technology stocks bounced back Wednesday but were unable to hold their gains at the close as the Nasdaq composite fell 24 points to 3,877.44. The Dow Jones industrial average moved up 125 points to finish at 11,122.65.
Coming on the heels of Tuesday's huge sell-off, some analysts are actually thankful the market has turned so volatile in the early stages of 2000.
"The market is acting rationally," said Barry Hyman, the market strategist for Ehrenkrantz, King Nussbaum. "Higher interest rates do matter, at least for the short term. Nasdaq stocks are finally acting rationally. I don't see a crash coming."
Microsoft managed to scratch out a slight gain, picking up 1 3/16 to 113 13/16. Oracle lopped off 5 11/16 to 102 and Sun Microsystems inched up 1/8 to 71 7/8.
Amazon.com dropped 12 3/16 to 69 3/4 after the company said its fourth quarter sales would come in at about $650m (£403m), but won't help the bottom line. The company expects inventory writedowns.
Yahoo! lost 32 1/2 to 410 1/2. Excite@Home shaved off 7/16 to 39 15/16 and Lycos fell 7 to 71 3/8. eBay closed up 8 9/16 to 136 9/16 and America Online dipped 2 to 75.
Priceline.com closed up 5 15/16 to 59 15/16 on expectations of a strong fourth quarter. Salon.com gained 2 3/4 to 7 15/16 on news that it would be providing news to Red Hat's Web site. Red Hat shares closed up 41 to 256.
On the ugly side, BMC Software plunged 27 7/16 to 49 9/16 after a profit warning.
Dell rose 3 5/16 to 49 15/16 after PaineWebber analyst Don Young on Wednesday boosted his rating on Dell to "attractive" from "neutral" and raised his share target price to $60 from $45.
Compaq closed unchanged at 29 and Apple moved up 1 1/2 to 104. Gateway shed 3/4 to 62 1/4.
Intel added 11/16 to 83 5/8. IBM picked up 6 3/16 to 118 1/4 after Banc of America Securities upgraded the stock from a "buy" to a "strong buy" rating. AMD closed up 3/4 to 30.
Cisco Systems shaved off 5/16 to 101 11/16 while 3Com and Lucent fell 1 15/16 and 1 1/2 a share, respectively.
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