MIDDAY MARKETS: Techs shrug over Greenspan''s remarks

Jan. 2, 2002 4:43 p.m. PT

2 min read

Investors shrugged off Greenspan's remarks that the economy showed no sign of cooling, and continued to buy into techs at midday Tuesday. The Nasdaq rose 29.45 to 4,009.74 and the Dow Jones industrial average climbed 124.54 to 10,771.12.

The Inter@ctive Week @Net Index fell 5 to 483.09.

Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said on Tuesday it was still an open issue as to whether the U.S. productivity boom signals a permanent structural change in the economy. He said it might take a broad slowdown in the economy to give a clear indication as to how much of the productivity pickup was permanent, but that no such slow down appeared to be underway.

Axcelis Technologies (Nasdaq: ACLS), a semiconductor equipment manufacturer, priced at $22 each, at the top of its expected price range of $20 to $22 a share.

Entegris (Nasdaq: ENTG), which makes semiconductor and disk drive materials management products, priced 13 million shares at $11 each Tuesday, well below the original $15-17 range, which was lowered to $13-15. Story

Pinnacle Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: PCLE) reached its nadir, down 13 7/16 to 9 3/16 after announcing that fourth quarter results will miss analysts' estimates.

Therma-Wave (Nasdaq: TWAV) rose 16 percent after it reported record orders of $61.9 million and pre-announced revenue of $41.6 million for the first quarter of fiscal 2001.

DoubleClick (Nasdaq: DCLK) was down 1 15/16 to 29 3/4 or 6 percent Tuesday, adding to its Monday decline.

Shares of VoiceStream Wireless Corp. (Nasdaq: VSTR) were up 14 5/8 to 139 9/16 after reports surfaced about a possible buyout

Storage Technology Corp. (NYSE: STK), down 5/16 to 11 3/4, has named Patrick Martin chairman, president and CEO.

Search engine Ask Jeeves Inc. (Nasdaq: ASKJ), down 25/64 to 14 11/16, has been added to the Russell 2000 index.

Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) fell 8 to 102, Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN) shed 1 5/8 to 33 7/16 and AOL (NYSE: AOL) lost 1 5/16 to 54 7/16.

Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) rose 2 15/16 to 140 3/4, Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) was up 1 5/16 to 79 5/8.

Among other leading tech issues: Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO) was up 5/8 to 63 3/44, Sun Microsystems (Nasdaq: SUNW) rose 11/16 to 92 7/16 and Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL) rose 3/8 to 74 1/2.