MARKET CLOSE: Pre-election rally for blue chips

Blue-chip stocks made healthy gains Monday as the Dow Jones industrial average moved up 159 points to 10,977.21. The Nasdaq composite fell 35 points to 3,416.39.

Just one day before the general election, investors were buying biotech and pharmaceutical stocks, two sectors expected to prosper if George W. Bush were elected.

"This is a Bush market today," said Jack Shaughnessy, chief investment strategist at Advest Inc. "Obviously people are viewing the prospect of his presidency as being very positive for investors. This is also a continuation of last week's positive momentum."

America Online (AOL) shares added $2.43 to $55.86. Yahoo! (YHOO) shaved off $3.13 while Amazon.com (AMZN) and CMGI (CMGI) fell $1 and $1.06 a share, respectively. eBay (EBAY) trimmed 44 cents to $54.38.

Turnstone Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: TSTN) lost $19.13 to $10.38 after announcing it is lowering its revenue estimate for the fourth quarter due to increased weakness among its competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC) customers and recent changes to their capital spending plans.

Among widely held PC stocks, Dell (DELL) slid $1.06 to $31.50; Compaq (CPQ) fell $1.29 to $29.80; Gateway (GTW) dropped $2.45 to $47.95 and Apple Computer (AAPL) closed off 81 cents to $21.44.

Microsoft (MSFT) added $1.25 to $69.50. Oracle (ORCL) lost $2.38 to $27.94 and Sun Microsystems (SUNW) closed off $2.31 to $110.75.

VA Linux Systems (Nasdaq: LNUX) warned investors that its first-quarter results would fall short of expectations. Its shares plunged $12.63 to $17.38.

Intel (INTC) inched up 63 cents to $46.56. Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) gained 56 cents to $24.31 and IBM (IBM) tacked on 6 cents to $100.19.

Broadcom Corp. (Nasdaq: BRCM) fell $3.38 to $219 after announcing it will acquire networking chip maker SiByte Inc. in a deal worth up to $2 billion.

Cypress Semiconductor (NYSE: CY) said it had surpassed $1 billion in revenues for the current year. The company estimates its annual revenue run-rate at about $1.6 billion. The stock finished up 94 cents to $38.63.