Dell’s (NASDAQ: DELL) $3.9 billion acquisition of Perot Systems (NYSE: PER) was good news for everyone but Dell shareholders on Monday.
Perot shares soared 65 percent on the news, while the rest of the tech sector finished with small gains after starting out the day lower.
Dell, however, ended the day 4 percent lower, while IT services giants IBM (NYSE: IBM) and HP (NYSE: HPQ) finished the day mixed on news of a new competitor.
Palm (NASDAQ: PALM) surged 14 percent a day after trading lower on blow-out quarterly results and a stock offering. Reports of strong demand for the offering may have fueled the gain.
Mixed views from analysts left EMC (NYSE: EMC) shares little changed, while Applied Materials (NASDAQ: AMAT) lost 2.8 percent on a Caris & Co. downgrade.
Tellabs (NASDAQ: TLAB) was a big gainer, up 8.1 percent on no news.
VeriChip (NASDAQ: CHIP) shares more than doubled on an H1N1 triage system licensing deal.
The Nasdaq rose 5 to 2138, the S&P 500 lost 3 to 1064, and the Dow was off 41 to 9778. Volume declined to 4.62 billion shares on the NYSE, and 2.42 billion on the Nasdaq. Decliners led by a 24-12 margin on the NYSE, and 14-12 on the Nasdaq. Upside volume was 39 percent on the NYSE, and 57 percent on the Nasdaq. New highs-new lows were 188-36 on the NYSE, and 98-11 on the Nasdaq.