The Nasdaq tacked on another 1% to Tuesday’s big gains, while HP (NYSE: HPQ), Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) and eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) led the tech sector higher.
Apple rose 4.6% after the company unveiled its latest iPod.
HP shares surged 5.8% on a UBS upgrade on valuation. The company’s shares have fallen sharply since it reported lower than expected sales last month.
eBay jumped 4.8% on strong PayPal growth.
Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) added 3% on a controversial new advertising program.
Nokia (NYSE: NOK) was up 5.3% despite a Gartner report that the company is losing smartphone market share.
National Semi (NYSE: NSM) slipped 3% on its results and news of a 26% layoff, but Micron (NYSE: MU) jumped 11% on speculation that it could benefit from a Taiwan government plan to shore up the country’s memory chip business.
Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), Marvell (NASDAQ: MRVL), Applied Materials (NASDAQ: AMAT) and Juniper (NASDAQ: JNPR) all rose 4%.
Priceline (NASDAQ: PCLN) and Orbitz (NYSE: OWW) fell on a promotion by rival Expedia (NASDAQ: EXPE).
NetScout (NASDAQ: NTCT) fell sharply on no apparent news.
The Nasdaq rose 13 to 1371, the S&P 500 added 1 to 721, and the Dow was up 3 to 6930. Volume declined to 8.46 billion shares on the NYSE, and 2.24 billion on the Nasdaq. Advancers led by a 22-15 margin on the NYSE, and 14-13 on the Nasdaq. Upside volume was 60% on the NYSE, and 70% on the Nasdaq. New highs-new lows were 5-125 on the NYSE, and 4-120 on the Nasdaq.
