By Rex Crum
Tech stocks claimed more high ground in afternoon trading Monday
as an upbeat report on semiconductor sales helped lead to broad
gains across the sector.
The Semiconductor Industry Association [SIA] said Monday that
worldwide chip sales in January rose to $22.5 billion, a 47.2%
increase from the same month a year ago. Chip sales were also up
0.3% from December.
SIA president George Scalise said that sales were helped by
growing demand for semiconductors used in personal computers,
cellphones, automobiles and industrial applications.
Among chip stocks, flash memory developer SanDisk Corp. (SNDK)
climbed $2.84 a share, or almost 10%, to $31.97.
Before the market opened, Wedbush Morgan analyst Betsy Van Hees
raised her rating on SanDisk's stock to neutral from underperform,
saying there are better-than-expected signs of the supply and
demand levels for NAND flash memory, which SanDisk specializes in.
Van Hees also raised her price target on the stock to $32 a share
from $25.
Other chip stocks on the rise included Micron Technology Inc.
(MU), Intel Corp. (INTC), Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) and
Texas Instruments Inc. (TXN).
With chip stocks in the lead, the Nasdaq Composite Index (RIXF)
rose more than 31 points to 2,269, and the Philadelphia
Semiconductor Index (SOX) climbed nearly 3%.The Morgan Stanley High
Tech 35 Index (MSH) was up by 1.6%.
Gains also came from tech leaders such as Google Inc. (GOOG),
Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), Apple Inc. (AAPL), Cisco Systems Inc.
(CSCO) and Dell Inc. (DELL).