MARKET CLOSE: Late selling erodes tech gains

An early rally in technology stocks capitulated Thursday, pushing the Nasdaq composite down 65 points to 3,205.36. The Dow Jones industrial average, which spent most of the day in the red, closed off 211 points to 10,323.92.

Most the technology leaders were poised for decent gains until the last hour of trading.

"The buying that seems to be going on is short lived," said Louise Yamada, chief technical analyst at Salomon Smith Barney. "It's a temporary rotation."

Intel Corp. (INTC) was unable to maintain Wednesday's momentum, falling 2 3/16 to 115 3/16. Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) shed 1 13/16 to 70 7/8 and IBM Corp. (IBM) closed off 3 1/16 to 106 9/16.

Yahoo! Inc. (YHOO) fell 7 13/16 to 114 15/16. America Online Inc. (AOL) trimmed 1 1/2 to 49 9/16 while Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) and eBay Inc. (EBAY) closed off 3 1/16 and 4 15/32 a share, respectively.

Priceline.com (Nasdaq: PCLN) fell 1/4 to 36 1/4 after the company announced a deal with American Express (NYSE: AXP) and a new long distance service involving Net2Phone (Nasdaq: NTOP), up 2 9/16 to 27 1/16, deltathree.com (Nasdaq: DDDC), up 3/32 to 6 15/32, and ZeroPlus.com (Nasdaq: ZPLS), up 1/4 to 4 5/8.

Gateway Inc. (NYSE: GTW) closed up 15/16 to 47 7/8 after announcing it will invest $150 million in with Consumer Financial Network, a division of iXL Enterprises (Nasdaq: IIXL), up 3/4 to 14 11/16, a company that develops employee benefit solutions, in the hopes of selling more computers through the corporate market.

Apple Computer Inc. (AAPL) slid 7/16 to 87 1/4 while Dell Computer Corp. (DELL) and Compaq Computer Corp. (CPQ) closed off 1 1/2 and 5/16 a share, respectively.

Sonus Networks (Nasdaq: SONS) stormed up 27 1/2, or 120 percent, to 50 1/2 after it priced well above range. Stanford Microdevices (Nasdaq: SMDI) moved up 1 5/8 to 15 3/8 in its debut.

Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) tumbled 4 1/16 to 61 1/2 after Federal Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson lauded a third-party proposal to divide the company into three, and rejected the software maker's request for months of more hearings.

Oracle Corp. (ORCL) closed up 2 3/16 to 66 7/16 and Sun Microsystems Inc. (SUNW) dropped 3 1/2 to 72 7/8.>