Traders Still Shop For Tech In Abbreviated Session
Traders Still Shop For Tech In Abbreviated Session
A post-holiday shortened session didn’t keep traders away from technology issues as the Nasdaq rose to yet another record, even as the broad market stumbled.
The Nasdaq rose 27.31 to 3447.81, the Dow fell 19.26 to 10,988.91 and the S&P 500 lost a fraction to end at 1416.62.
The seemingly insatiable demand for big cap techs puts the Nasdaq on track to finish the year at its highest level since the index’s 1971 inception: The Nasdaq is now up 58% year-to-date and at this level would edge out the previous record, set in 1991, of 56%. Sun Microsystems [SUNW>SUNW], up 1 9/16 to 136 1/16, and Cisco [CSCO>CSCO], up 3/4 to 93 3/16, established new 52-week highs.
The wireless and bandwidth areas continue to be driving forces in the market: Qualcomm [QCOM>QCOM] added 9 7/16 to 384 3/4 and fiber optic network equipment makers JDS Uniphase [JDSU>JDSU] and Optical Coating [OCLI>OCLI] rose 9 7/16 and 8 7/16, respectively. AT&T ‘s [T>T] 4 1/4 gain to 57 7/16 was the biggest on the Dow and came on news that it might spin-off a tracking stock for its wireless division.
Linux-related stocks—