By Benjamin Pimentel
Technology stocks held on to modest gains Monday afternoon, as
shares of Palm Inc. and Nvidia Corp. tumbled, pushing back against
the sector's earlier advances.
Palm (PALM) and Nvidia (NVDA) were down more than 2% in
afternoon trading, as the Nasdaq Composite Index (RIXF) held on to
a 0.1% gain. The tech-heavy benchmark was at 2,022 at last
check.
The sector got a boost from Dell Inc. (DELL), shares of which
were up 3.2% after an analyst at Broadpoint AmTech raised his
rating on the stock to buy. The same analyst had upgraded Dell from
a sell rating in March.
"Two factors that kept us at neutral despite our recent positive
bias were the enterprise IT-demand environment and downward mix
shift in PCs," analyst Dinesh Moorjani wrote to clients. "We are
now more optimistic on the PC demand outlook and believe the
downward mix shift has played out for the most part."
Dell reports earnings results for the second fiscal quarter
Thursday.
AMD (AMD) was up 9% after Citigroup raised its rating for the
chip maker to buy from hold, citing a "favorable risk/reward
profile."
The Morgan Stanley High Tech 35 Index (MSH) was down 0.4%, while
the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOX) lost 0.3%.
Other gainers included Yahoo Inc. (YHOO), up 1.4%; Oracle Corp.
(ORCL), up 1.2%; and Google Inc. (GOOG), up 0.9%.