Techs soar on market rally
The broader markets enjoyed a monster day Monday as the Dow surged up 189.98 points, or 2.4 percent, to 8013.11 in heavy trading. The tech-laden NASDAQ was just as robust, charging up 30.17 points to close at 1630.72.
Analyst said several positive bits of financial news as well as general investor confidence were responsible for pushing the Dow above the 8000 threshold for the first time in more than three months.
A nice upswing in Asian markets during overnight trading carried over to Wall Street.
Leading the parade of winners was Xilinx Inc., which picked up $5.88 per share, or 17 percent, to $40.44. Intel Corp. was up $3.88 per share to $81.50 while Advanced Micro Devices Inc. gained 69 cents per share to $22.50.
IBM surged $2.63 per share to $112.13, a new 52-week high, while Rambus Inc. shot up $1.19 per share to $57.
"It's the time of year when money managers are looking to do a little window dressing," said Charles Payne, chief analyst at Wall Street Strategies. "Tech stocks are the ones that stand to gain the most during the next few weeks."
Among networking issues, Cisco Systems Inc. was up $4.19 per share to $90.44. 3Com Corp. shares rose $2.13 to $38.38 while Ascend Communications Inc. nudged up 63 cents per share.
Microsoft Corp. shot up $2.31 per share to $143.81 and Netscape Communications Corp. gained 38 cents per share to $28.88. Oracle Corp., however, dropped $1.44 per share to $31.88 after Goldman Sachs removed the stock from its recommended list.
Sun Microsystems Inc. picked up $2.38 per share to $38.88 after Saloman Brothers raised its rating from "outperform" to "buy."
PC vendors regained some of their momentum Monday as Dell Computer Corp. rose $5.88 per share to $90.06 and Compaq Computer Corp. surged $3.58 per share to $65.94. Gateway 2000 Inc. was up 94 cents to $29.69 while Apple Computer Inc. was unchanged at $17.75.
Yahoo! Inc. picked up $2.88 per share to $54 and Lycos Inc. rose $1.19 per share to $31.75. Excite Inc. lost 22 cents per share to $25.44.