TECH STOCKS: Little Movement

Stocks got a modest lift from a bullish economic assessment by the Federal Reserve on Wednesday, but the markets ended with little change as Wall Street appeared more interested in looking ahead to a key jobs report due later in the week.

The Fed's report that manufacturing activity and consumer spending rose over the last two months while jobs growth remained sluggish helped temper concerns about a coming interest-rate hike. But "there was nothing in the report to upset the apple cart one way or the other," Simon Melluish, head of U.S. equities at Gartmore Funds, told The Associated Press. "We're treading water a bit, waiting until we get new bits of news."

The government's February employment report is due out Friday, and an upbeat reading could help the market gain momentum.

None of the major indexes showed much movement. The InformationWeek 100 fell slightly, losing 1.06 points, or 0.3%, to end at 330.36. The Nasdaq fell 6.29 points, or 0.3%, to 2,033.36--still above its lows during the day. The Dow Jones industrials rose 1.63 points, or 0.02%, to 10,593.11, after spending most of the session in negative territory. The Standard & Poor's 500 rose 1.93 points, or 0.2%, to 1,151.03.

Many tech issues were down slightly. Intel fell 1.9%, or 56 cents, to $29.04; Cisco Systems fell 1.4%, or 33 cents, to $22.70; Verizon fell 1.2%, or 46 cents, to $39.00; and Dell fell 0.8%, or 28 cents, to $33.13. The Nasdaq-100 tracking stock fell 0.6%, or 20 cents, to $36.42, as 83.9 million shares changed hands.

See the full listing of all the companies in the InformationWeek 100 and the top 5 percentage winners and losers for the last closing at informationweek.com/stocks.