MARKET CLOSE: Blue chips stumble; techs mixed

Blue-chip stocks gave back most of their gains Tuesday and technology issues held their ground as the Nasdaq composite inched up 2 points to 3,851.97. The Dow Jones industrial average closed off 109 points to 11,067.00.

"There is a more of a wait-and-see attitude about buying given the profit picture," said Peggy Farley, president of Ascent Meredith Asset Management. "There is just not the buying to counterbalance the profit taking."

Chip stocks moved higher Tuesday after Morgan Stanley Dean Witter issued some positive comments about the sector.

Intel (INTC) picked up 15/16 to 67 7/8 while Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and Atmel (ATML) gained 1/2 and 3 3/16 a share, respectively.

Conexant (CNXT) moved up 5 1/8 to 33 11/16 and Rambus (RMBS) closed up 3 13/16 to 80 3/4.

Microsoft (MSFT) trimmed 9/16 to 71 5/8. Sun Microsystems (SUNW) added 3 5/16 to 117 3/8 and Oracle (ORCL) closed off 1 1/8 to 81 1/4.

Red Hat (Nasdaq: RHAT) rose 2 3/16 to 24 on reports that it had inked a couple deals with Motorola (NYSE: MOT).

Among widely held PC stocks, Dell (DELL) added 1 3/8 to 38 1/16; Compaq (CPQ) fell 7/16 to 31 15/16; Gateway (GTW) trimmed 1/8 to 61 15/16 and Apple Computer (AAPL) finished off 3/8 to 46 11/16.

America Online Inc. (NYSE: AOL) rose 1 5/8 to 54 5/8 after it got good reviews from analysts Tuesday regarding both its new software and its proposed merger with Time-Warner (NYSE: TWX).

Yahoo! (YHOO) clipped 1/16 to 132 5/16. Lycos (LCOS) shed 9/16 to 57 15/16 while Amazon.com (AMZN) and eBay (EBAY) rose 2 11/16 and 3 11/16 a share, respectively.

Nortel Networks (NYSE: NT) added 1 1/16 to 80 5/16 on news that it will acquire Sonoma Systems in a stock deal worth $540 million. Cisco Systems (CSCO) finished off 1 1/4 to 63 1/4 and Lucent Technologies (LU) gained 1 13/16 to 42 1/2.