It’s been a long time since mutual fund managers snapped up Internet stocks for quarter-end window dressing.
But with Internet stocks up more than 30% in the second quarter and the end of the quarter approaching, fund managers may be doing just that, picking up shares of stocks like eBay , Amazon
and Yahoo
to list in their mid-year reports to shareholders.
It’s an old trick that doesn’t change a fund’s performance for the quarter, just the perception of shareholders, but for the next few days, it just might benefit Internet stocks for a change.
The broader market rose Thursday as better-than-expected weekly jobless claims offset a weak final reading of first quarter GDP. Traders also apparently decided they liked the Federal Reserve’s upbeat language when it cut interest rates yesterday. However, the Fed rate cut has so far had no effect – no major bank had dropped its prime rate by Thursday afternoon, according to Bankrate.com, and mortgage rates shot up a quarter of a point overnight on disappointment that the Fed only cut by 25 basis points.
The surged 31 to 1634, the S&P 500 gained 10 to 985, and the Dow rose 67 to 9079. Volume declined to 1.38 billion shares on the NYSE, but was unchanged at 1.56 billion on the Nasdaq. Advancers led 21-11 on the NYSE, and 19-11 on the Nasdaq. Upside volume was 72% on the NYSE, and 75% on the Nasdaq. New highs-new lows were 82-8 on the NYSE, and 138-14 on the Nasdaq.
Microsoft rose 2% after winning a round against Sun
and winning a big Army contract.
Roxio surged 9% on Napster’s comeback.
Manugistics , Research in Motion
and 3 Com
fell on earnings results. RIMM was hit by a downgrade based on potential competition from Dell
, which gained 1.9%.
HP rose 2.4% on a Linux alliance.
AOL rose 4% as it previewed AOL 9.0.
IBM climbed 2.3% on a disaster recovery contract.
SanDisk lost 1.3% on potential legal trouble.
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