MARKET CLOSE: Nasdaq hits another record close

Blue-chip stocks plodded through uneven trading Monday but technology stocks, particularly chip and biotech issues, pushed the Nasdaq composite up 76 points to a record close of 4,320.54. The Dow closed off 58 points to 10,905.79.

"The rest of the market is perceived as beholden to the old rules of interest rates, and is locked in a trading range pending more rate increases," said Scott Bleier, chief market strategist at Prime Charter Ltd. "But the Nasdaq is not subject to those rules."

Intel Corp. (INTC) spent much of the day in the red before a late surge pushed it up 3 1/8 to 107 7/8. Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) tacked on 2 5/16 to 40 7/8 and International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) shed 1 1/2 to 114 1/8.

Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) inched up 1/16 to 106 5/8 while both Sun Microsystems Inc. (SUNW) and Oracle Corp. (ORCL) gained to 2 to close at 85 3/4 and 59 13/16, respectively.

Corel Corp (Nasdaq: CORL) fell 11/16 to 19 5/16 after it announced its intentions to acquire Inprise/Borland Corp., in a $2.44 billion stock swap that the companies say will create a "Linux powerhouse." VA Linux (Nasdaq: LNUX) closed off 5 5/8 to 119 3/8 and Red Hat Inc. (Nasdaq: RHAT) slid 3 3/4 to 88 15/16.

Visual Networks (Nasdaq: VNWK) dropped 13 1/16 to 50 5/16 after it said it had agreed to buy privately held Avesta Technologies for about $415 million in stock.

Among widely held PC stocks, Dell Computer Corp. (DELL) shaved off 7/8 to 37 5/8; Compaq Computer Corp. (CPQ) closed unchanged at 27 3/8; Gateway Inc. (GTW) added 2 3/8 to 63 1/16 and Apple Computer Inc. (AAPL) shot up 6 1/16 to 114 1/16.

Agilent Technologies (NYSE: A) added 3 1/4 to 79 1/2 after it acquired the Silicon Valley Networking Lab, Inc., a networking-industry test lab.

Kana Communications (Nasdaq: KANA) plunged 18 3/8 to 240 1/2 after it announced it would combine its online customer support software with Silknet's e-business applications and systems.

Akamai Technologies (Nasdaq: AKAM) closed off 6 3/8 to 228 5/8 after announced plans to acquire InterVu, which develops systems to deliver video and audio over the Internet, for about $2.8 billion in stock.

Metrocall Inc. (Nasdaq: MCLL) charged up 1 3/8 to 13 after it said several companies were taking a stake in the Internet data and two-way messaging company.

Yahoo! Inc. (YHOO) closed up 1/2 to 354 while America Online Inc. (AOL) and Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) fell 3/16 and 3 9/16 a share, respectively. Lycos Inc. (LCOS) nudged up 1/4 to 71 3/4 and eBay Inc. (EBAY) finished up 1 1/2 to 169 9/16.

Go2Net (Nasdaq: GNET) rose 1 5/16 to 84 1/4 after it announced a three-year agreement to make NDB.com (NYSE: NDB), up 1 5/16 to 25 1/16 the exclusive brokerage service for the Go2Net Network.