TECH STOCKS: Down, Up, Then Down

Wall Street watchers should be used to this by now. A roller coaster of a day that first appeared dismal, and then got noticeably rosier, finished on negative ground. The morning slump was attributed to reports of terrorist attacks in Istanbul and an evacuation of the White House, but buyers got back to business when fears of domestic terrorist threats subsided and a better-than-expected report on initial unemployment claims was issued.

As the rally tailed off, however, so did most major tech issues. Sun Microsystems fell 14 cents, or 3.4%, to $4.04; Intel fell 69 cents, or 2.1%, to $31.83; and Oracle fell 21 cents, or 1.8%, to $11.82. Even Wall Street darling eBay had an off day, falling $1.01, or 1.9%, to $52.03. The Nasdaq-100 tracking stock also fell, 33 cents, or nearly 1%, to $33.88, on healthy volume of 117.2 million shares. Notable exceptions to the day's losses included BEA Systems, which rose 13 cents, or 1.1%, to $12.34; and Novell, which rose 7 cents, or 0.8%, to $8.77.

Tech-laden indexes were hardest hit, with the InformationWeek 100 leading the way, falling 5.09 points, or 1.7%, to 293.61. The Nasdaq fell 17.73 points, or 0.9%, to 1,881.92. The Dow fell 71.04 points, or 0.7%, to 9,619.42, and the S&P 500 fell 8.79 points, or 0.8%, to close at 1,033.65.