MARKET CLOSE: Techs make slight gains

Technology stocks made slight gains Wednesday as the Nasdaq composite moved up 5 points to 3,853.52. The Dow Jones industrial average closed off 71 points to 10,905.83.

While investors continue to eye economic reports ahead of the Fed's Aug. 22 meeting, blue-chip and technology stocks have gone in separate directions.

"It's a tug of war between old economy and new economy stocks,'' said Larry Rice, chief investment officer at Josephthal Lyon & Ross. "There is such phenomenal rotation."

Cisco Systems (Nasdaq: CSCO) gained 2 5/16 to 67 13/16 after the network-equipment maker reported better than expected earnings and revenue gains Tuesday night.

Nortel Networks (NT) lost 1 1/8 to 79 7/8 and Lucent Technologies (LU) closed up 11/16 to 41 3/16.

Intel (INTC) shares added 1 15/16 to 63 9/16. Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) trimmed 13/16 to 60 7/16 and IBM (IBM) closed off 1/16 to 118 13/16.

Vitesse Semiconductor Corp. (Nasdaq: VTSS) jumped 9 3/8 to 70 5/16 after it received an upgrade from Banc of America Securities. Applied Materials (AMAT) rose 1 9/16 to 72 1/8 ahead of its earnings report.

Yahoo! (YHOO) shares fell 1 7/16 to 132 11/16. America Online (AOL) dipped 1 7/16 to 52 5/8 while Amazon.com (AMZN) and eBay (EBAY) dropped 2 1/16 and 5/16 a share, respectively. Lycos (LCOS) closed off 5/8 to 57 1/8.

Shares of CheckFree Corp. (Nasdaq: CKFR) plunged 4 5/16 to 50 7/16 even though it reported a narrower-than-expected loss in its latest quarter.

Microsoft (MSFT) inched up 1/8 to 74 1/4. Oracle (ORCL) lost 1 5/8 to 81 3/8 and Sun Microsystems (SUNW) trimmed 1/8 to 111 3/4.

Among widely held PC stocks, Dell (DELL) rose 1/8 to 41 13/16; Gateway (GTW) fell 1/8 to 59 3/4; Compaq (CPQ) moved up 5/16 to 31 5/16 and Apple Computer (AAPL) picked up 3/4 to close at 47 1/2.