HP, Juniper Lead Tech Stocks Higher
Major stock indexes rose on Monday as investors bought shares ahead of the end of the quarter and the start of earnings reporting period.
HP (NYSE: HPQ) and Juniper Networks (NASDAQ: JNPR) paced tech sector gains, rising about 4% each on no news.
Juniper along with Brocade (NASDAQ: BRCD) has benefited as HP and IBM (NYSE: IBM) give the companies more business in the wake of Cisco's (NASDAQ: CSCO) move into the server market. Cisco added just 0.4% ahead of its Cisco Live event on Tuesday.
Sun (NASDAQ: JAVA) managed to tack on 2% despite news that its proposed merger with Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) may face antitrust scrutiny.
But Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) lost a fraction despite news that CEO Steve Jobs is back on the job. Palm (NASDAQ: PALM) and Research in Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM) also lost ground on the day.
AMD (NYSE: AMD) and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) gained more than 2% each.
Level 3 (NASDAQ: LVLT) rose 7% on an expanded customer deal with ImClone.
The Nasdaq rose 5 to 1844, the S&P 500 gained 8 to 927, and the Dow rose 90 to 8529. Volume fell to 4.21 billion shares on the NYSE, and 2.04 billion on the Nasdaq. Advancers led by a 23-13 margin on the NYSE, while decliners led 15-12 on the Nasdaq. Upside volume was 61% on the NYSE, and 62% on the Nasdaq. New highs-new lows were 30-49 on the NYSE, and 58-13 on the Nasdaq.