TECH STOCKS: A Day For Taking Profits

Profit-takers dominated Tuesday's trading as investors capitalized on Monday's big gains, and tech stocks absorbed the brunt of the sell-off. Losers included Identix, which fell 35 cents, or 6.7%, to close at $4.87. Compuware, Hyperion Solutions, RSA Security, and webMethods all fell more than 5%. Fair Isaac and Co. was the big winner among our InformationWeek 100 stocks, rising 7.1%, or $3.90, to finish at $58.90.

Our InformationWeek 100 fell 1.90%, or 6.58 points, to close at 340.63. The Nasdaq Composite Index also fell, dropping 1.8%, or 37.79 points, to close at 2,116.04. The Dow fell 0.8%, or 89.11 points, to close at 10,613.40, and the S&P 500 fell 1%, or 11.22 points, to close at 1,144.15.

The Nasdaq-100 tracking stock also ended lower, falling 74 cents, or 1.9%, to close at $37.85 on slightly higher-than-normal trading volume of 90 million shares.

At least one analyst saw Tuesday's activity as healthy. "We're still in a good environment, we're still in an upward trend," Todd Leone, managing director of equity trading at SG Cowen Securities, told The Associated Press. "I like to see us go down a little bit, actually, it's healthy. You don't want to see the market going in a straight line up."