Tech stocks received a small boost from Dell, whose sunny outlook for this year was a welcome relief from the disappointing outlooks from Hewlett-Packard Co. and Cisco Systems Inc. earlier in the week. Analysts, however, maintain that technology shares, semiconductors in particular, remain oversold.
Dell rose US$1.39 to US$34.51 after matching Wall Street expectations in its second-quarter profit. The computer maker said its third quarter, the back-to-school season that drives much of the personal technology industry's profits, looked positive.
Software maker Agilent Technologies Inc rose 84 cents to US$20.52 after announcing a third-quarter profit, compared to its year-ago loss. The company beat Wall Street expectations by 2 cents per share.
PalmSource Inc, creator of software for the popular Palm handhelds, said chairman Eric Benhamou will step down in late October. Benhamou will remain chairman of palmOne Inc, which makes the handhelds themselves. PalmSource was down 12 cents at US$18.03, while palmOne dropped 10 cents to US$38.00.
Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by about 7 to 6 on the New York Stock Exchange, where preliminary consolidated volume came to 1.43 billion shares, compared with 1.73 billion on Thursday.
The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies was up 0.29, or 0.1 percent, at 517.39.
The Dow Jones industrials ended the week up 10.02, or 0.1 percent, finishing at 9,825.35. The S&P 500 index gained 0.83, or 0.1 percent, to close at 1,064.80.
The Nasdaq fell 19.67, or 1.1 percent, during the week, closing at 1,757.22 on Friday.
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