MARKET CLOSE: Afternoon buying blunts tech losses

Bargain hunting mitigated losses among tech stocks Monday afternoon.

The Nasdaq Composite Index ended the day down 5.45 to 3,355.56, an improvement from the morning, when the tech-heavy group was down more than 127 at one point. The S&P 500 dipped 6.96 to 1,402.03. The blue chip Dow Jones Industrial Average slid 28.11 to 10,568.43.

Inter@ctive Week's @100 Index fell 22.48 to 3,732.35.

Shares of Broadvision (Nasdaq: BVSN) rose 3.6875 to 21.9375 after the companies announced a partnership that combines i2's TradeMatrix and TradeMatrix Content Solutions products with Broadvision's e-commerce suite. i2's stock price rose 11.875 to 173.

Internet companies were headed south; Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN) fell 1.5 to 30.0625, after CEO Jeff Bezos rejected criticism of the group's expansion strategy amid a sagging share price, saying it would diversify further.

Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq: YHOO) picked up 4.5 to 85.75. The Web portal operator announced enterprise services agreements with Honeywell (NYSE: HON), up 0.4375 to 36.9375, Applied Materials, Inc. (Nasdaq: AMAT), up 1.5625 to 55.75, Intellinex, an eLearning Venture of Ernst & Young LLP, and TCW Group. AOL (NYSE: AOL) dropped 2.05 to 57.08.

Electronic Data Systems Corp. (NYSE:EDS) rose 4 to 44.625 after the computer services company won a contract with the U.S. Navy fir $6.9 billion. Other contenders for the contract, IBM (NYSE: IBM) and CSC (NYSE: CSC), were up 1.9375 to 117.9375 and 6.8125 to 70.25, respectively.

N2H2 Inc. (Nasdaq: NTWO), down 0.0625 to 1.625, said Monday that results for the fourth quarter will be below expectations. The company now expects a pro forma net loss between 35 and 38 cents a share. First Call Corp. had been expecting a loss of 32 cents a share.

Wind River Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: WIND), up 0.5625 to 41.3125, said Monday it will buy Rapid Logic Inc., a provider of advanced device management technologies for networking equipment and other intelligent devices.

Among other active tech stocks, Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) slid 0.875 to 39.0625, Cisco Systems (Nasdaq: CSCO) dropped 2.5 to 53.6875 and JDS Uniphase (Nasdaq: JDSU) rose 2.1875 to 93.5625.