MARKET CLOSE: Techs flat in light trading

Technology stocks made slight gains Monday as the Nasdaq composite moved up 8 points to 3,821.73 while the Dow Jones industrial average added 21 points to close at 10,815.30.

After last week's huge gains, investors were taking a bit of a breather.

But with the economy showing signs of cooling, analysts said a halt to interest-rate hikes could spark a strong rally though the rest of the year.

"I believe last week's rally will extend through the election and on through year-end," said Joseph Battipaglia, chief investment strategist at Gruntal & Co. "I continue to believe that good performance on earnings will remain the key catalyst for individual company performance and technology should provide leadership in this regard."

Microsoft (MSFT) shares moved up 9/16 to 66 7/8 while Oracle (ORCL) and Sun Microsystems (SUNW) gained 3/4 and 3/16 a share, respectively.

Qualcomm (Nasdaq: QCOM) fell 5 7/16 to 67 1/4 on news that China Unicom would not be using its wireless technology, but another company, Garmin Corp., would.

Yahoo! Inc. (YHOO) shares closed up 2 13/16 to 137 5/16. America Online (AOL) shaved off 1 3/4 to 55 1/4 while Amazon.com (AMZN) and eBay (EBAY) shed 3 3/8 and 1 3/4 a share, respectively. Lycos (LCOS) finished off 1 13/16 to 69 3/8.

Ariba (Nasdaq: ARBA) shot up 10 to 80 1/2 after announcing a deal with American Express (NYSE: AXP), down 7/8 to 55 5/8, and VeriSign (Nasdaq: VRSN), which closed off 4 11/16 to 177 11/16.

Among widely held PC stocks, Dell Computer (DELL) lost 9/16 to 42 3/4; Compaq Computer (CPQ) inched up 1/4 to 26 7/8; Gateway (GTW) trimmed 2 7/8 to 51 7/8 and Apple Computer (AAPL) finished down 1 1/4 to 91 5/16.

Cisco Systems (Nasdaq: CSCO) snapped up another company Monday, adding the privately held Israeli company HyNEX Ltd. for about $127 million in stock. Its shares closed off 1 1/8 to 63 1/4 and Lucent Technologies (LU) gained 1 1/2 to 64 1/2.

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) picked up 15/16 to 91 1/16 after rolling out its latest Thunderbird line. Intel (INTC) fell 1 5/8 to 132 9/16 and IBM Corp. (IBM) rallied up 3 5/8 to 112 7/16. >