Tech Stocks Soar Despite Big Job Losses

Stocks soared Friday despite news that the U.S. economy shed nearly 600,000 jobs last month, as traders viewed the report as all but assuring that Congress will pass a massive economic stimulus package.

Also boosting stocks was anticipation of the Obama Administration’s new bank rescue plan expected to be announced on Monday.

The Nasdaq gained 3% on the day and nearly 8% on the week, as traders bought in anticipation of the twin financial rescue plans, and many individual names did even better.

Tech stocks with gains of 4% or more on Friday included IBM (NYSE: IBM), HP (NYSE: HPQ), VMware (NYSE: VMW), Taiwan Semi (NYSE: TSM), Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO), Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM), SanDisk (NASDAQ: SNDK), Research In Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM), Broadcom (NASDAQ: BRCM) and Sun (NASDAQ: JAVA).

The gains erased the Nasdaq’s loss for the year and put it up a little less than 1% for 2009. The index lost 40% last year.

Corning (NYSE: GLW) jumped 7% after it said it sees LCD demand improving, a surprise boost for the tech sector.

Skyworks (NASDAQ: SWKS), Synchronoss (NASDAQ: SNCR) and Infineon (NYSE: IFX) gained on their quarterly results.

The Nasdaq surged 45 to 1591, the S&P 500 gained 22 to 868, and the Dow rose 217 to 8280. Volume declined to 7.37 billion shares on the NYSE, and 2.45 billion on the Nasdaq. Advancers led by a 31-7 margin on the NYSE, and 19-8 on the Nasdaq. Upside volume was 92% on the NYSE, and 82% on the Nasdaq. New highs-new lows were 15-70 on the NYSE, and 6-70 on the Nasdaq.