"It looks like Oracle is going to be able to close their deal for PeopleSoft, which has tech investors excited. And that could indicate more mergers down the road in the tech sector, which bodes well," said Keith Keenan, vice president of institutional trading at Wall Street Access. "Add to that the economic data, which looks decent, and the start of the third quarter, and that's got things going today."
Semiconductor shares saw renewed interest after J.P. Morgan upgraded two semiconductor equip-ment makers, Novellus Systems Inc and Teradyne Inc, breathing new life into the struggling technology sector.
Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by more than 4 to 1 on the New York Stock Exchange, where preliminary consolidated volume came to 1.95 billion shares, compared with 2.18 billion on Thursday.
The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies was up 12.09, or 2.1 percent, at 585.03.
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