Tech stocks made modest gains Tuesday after another round of benign comments from Fed Chief Alan Greenspan. The Nasdaq composite moved up 48 to 4,029.54 while the Dow Jones industrial average gained 15 points to close at 10,699.97.
Analysts said the Fed chief's Congressional testimony had so far offered the market little new insight on the direction of interest rates.
"The more we listen to Alan Greenspan's ditto of last week's commentary, the more we like it, and the more we're buying tech stocks, the more we realize we overdid it yesterday," said Arthur Hogan, chief market analyst at Jefferies & Co.
Sun Microsystems (SUNW) made a strong move, gaining 8 9/16 to 109. Microsoft (MSFT) fell 1 9/16 to 69 and Oracle (ORCL) moved up 1 to 76.
Among widely held PC stocks, Compaq (CPQ) inched up 1/2 to 27 7/16 ahead of its second-quarter earnings report; Gateway (GTW) added 1 3/4 to 60 3/8; Apple Computer (AAPL) picked up 1 3/8 to 50 1/16 and Dell Computer (DELL) closed up 3/8 to 46 13/16.
AT&T (NYSE: T) moved up 1 9/32 to 34 9/32 after the company topped Wall Street expectations, pulling in $1.88 billion, or 57 cents a share, on sales of $16.2 billion.
AT&T Wireless (Nasdaq: AWE), which trades as a tracking stock, closed up 1 7/16 to 28 1/2. The company said today that average monthly revenue per user had hit $71.50, up 7.7 percent.
Ameritrade (Nasdaq: AMTD) rose 15/16 to 13 3/16 despite reporting a drop in revenues from the first quarter. But brokerage the company did beat Wall Street expectations, posting an unexpected positive income of $4.6 million, or three cents a share. E*Trade Group (EGRP) closed up 13/16 to 17 1/8.
Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN) fell 1 1/8 to 37 5/8 after President and COO Joseph Galli resigned from the online retailer to become VerticalNet's (VERT) new chief executive officer.
Yahoo! (YHOO) picked up 5 7/16 to 138 while eBay (EBAY) and Lycos (LCOS) moved up 1 1/8 and 2 13/16 a share, respectively. America Online (AOL) shaved off 1/2 to 55 5/8.
Intel (INTC) closed up 2 7/8 to 140 7/8 after Morgan Stanley Dean Witter said it expects strong semiconductor demand for the next 18 to 24 months. Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) picked up 11/16 to 78 11/16 and IBM (IBM) closed off 3/4 to 11 3/4.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) added 2 1/16 to 68 1/8. Nortel Networks (NT) gained 1/2 to 82 1/2 ahead of its earnings report. Lucent Technologies (LU) shed 3/4 to 49 1/2 and 3Com (COMS) closed up 1 3/4 to 67 15/16.