Seagate, Palm Gain as Stocks Pull Back

Seagate (NYSE: STX), Palm (NASDAQ: PALM) and AMD (NYSE: AMD) continued to rise Tuesday even as the rest of the market gave back some of Monday’s huge gains.

Seagate shares gained nearly 12% on heavy call buying, which appeared to be driven in part by takeover speculation.

AMD tacked on 4% after FBR became the latest analyst firm to suggest that a bottom may be near for the chip industry, but the rest of the sector lost ground with the broader market.

Palm rose more than 5%, fueled in part by reports that Dell (NASDAQ: DELL) could try to acquire its way into the smartphone market. Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) and Research in Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM) slipped about 1% each.

Sun Microsystems (NASDAQ: JAVA) edged higher as investors continued to await an official takeover offer from IBM (NYSE: IBM).

But the rest of the market slumped as traders digested the government’s ambitious plan to relieve banks of toxic assets that are clogging the financial system.

Micron (NYSE: MU), Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), Intel (NASDAQ: INTC), Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA), Broadcom (NASDAQ: BRCM), Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO), Applied Materials (NASDAQ: AMAT), eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) and Juniper (NASDAQ: JNPR) all fell more than the Nasdaq’s 2.4% loss.

After the close, Jabil (NYSE: JBL) shares were little changed as the company beat estimates but lowered guidance. The stock fell 11% ahead of the report.

The Nasdaq lost 38 to 1517, the S&P 500 fell 16 to 806, and the Dow lost 115 to 7660. Volume declined to 7.9 billion shares on the NYSE, and 2.02 billion on the Nasdaq. Decliners led by a 25-12 margin on the NYSE, and 19-8 on the Nasdaq. Downside volume was 83% on the NYSE, and 74% on the Nasdaq. New highs-new lows were 17-94 on the NYSE, and 13-28 on the Nasdaq.