Research in Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM) led tech stocks higher on a day that saw continued volatility in financial shares.

RIM shares gained more than 5% on excitement about the company's new products.

Texas Instruments (NYSE: TXN) gained only 0.6% despite saying it will hit its financial targets this quarter, but Micron (NYSE: MU) fared much better, surging 11% on an upbeat Wall Street Journal article.

International Rectifier (NYSE: IRF) rose 7% on a sweetened takeover offer from Vishay (NYSE: VSH).

Sirius XM (NASDAQ: SIRI) fell for a second day after lowering its outlook, closing below $1.

Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM) rose more than 7% on news that it will replace Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE) in the S&P 500.

But the Salesforce news was emblematic of the market's biggest problem: the failure of some of the biggest pillars of the U.S. financial system. With Bear Stearns, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae (NYSE: FNM) rescued by the government, investors continued to fret that Lehman Brothers (NYSE: LEH) and Washington Mutual (NYSE: WM) could be next, fears that a $3.9 billion quarterly loss at Lehman did nothing to alleviate.

The result was a nearly 1% gain for the Nasdaq, with the Dow gaining less than half that.

LATEST NEWS

New Calls for Global Web Censorship Probe
Murdoch Balks at Twitter Buy, MySpace Sale
Breaches Hit 70% of UK Enterprises, Study Finds
Senate Nears Vote on Rethinking U.S. Spectrum
Why IE Doesn't Support HTML 5 Video (Yet)

The Nasdaq rose 18 to 2228, the S&P added 7 to 1232, and the Dow rose 38 to 11,268. Volume declined to 6.61 billion shares on the NYSE, and 2.32 billion on the Nasdaq. Advancers led by a 18-15 margin on the NYSE, and 16-12 on the Nasdaq. Upside volume was 51% on the NYSE, and 61% on the Nasdaq. New highs-new lows were 25-312 on the NYSE, and 41-233 on the Nasdaq.