TECH STOCKS: Pardon Our French, But Waa-Hoo!

The major indexes had a great day Wednesday as a new economic indicator showed solid growth in the service sector. The news spurred hopes of an imminent recovery, and traders went abuying.

Tech stocks fared well. Siebel Systems (SEBL) rose 9.9%, or 95 cents, to $10.55; Oracle (ORCL) rose 4.3%, or 56 cents, to $13.58; eBay (EBAY) rose 3.64%, or $3.61, to $102.65; Cisco Systems (CSCO) rose 2.1%, or 36 cents, to $17.37; Apple (AAPL) rose 1.7%, or 29 cents, to $17.60; and IBM (IBM) rose 0.5%, or 43 cents, to $84.25.

The Nasdaq index rose 1.9%, or 31.09 points, to 1,634.65, its best close in a year. Our InformationWeek 100 rose 0.7%, or 1.75 points, to 241.37. The Nasdaq-100 Index tracking stock rose 1.84%, or 55 cents, to $30.41, on heavy volume of 86.5 million shares.

The Dow rose 1.3%, or 116.03 points, to 9,038.98. It's the first time the index has closed above 9,000 in 10 months. The S&P 500 also did well, rising 1.5%, or 14.68 points, to 986.24.