By Rex Crum
Technology stocks ended up putting in a broadly upbeat
performance Monday ahead of the latest quarterly results from Apple
Inc. and Texas Instruments Inc.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index (RIXF) rose 19.5 points to
close at 2,176, while the Morgan Stanley High Tech 35 Index (MSH)
and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOX) each rose more than
1%.
Gains came from Dell Inc. (DELL), Oracle Corp. (ORCL), Google
Inc. (GOOG), IBM Corp. (IBM), Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO) and
Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ).
Much of the spotlight after the close was expected to be on
Apple (AAPL), whose fourth-quarter results were coming after the
market closes. Apple's shares closed up $1.81 at $189.86
Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters expect Apple to earn $1.42
a share on $9.2 billion in sales for the quarter. Sales of the
iPhone are expected to gain much of investors' attention.
TI (TXN) shares rose 77 cents, or 3.4%, to $23.52 ahead of the
communication-chip maker's third-quarter results, due after the
market closes. Wall Street analysts estimate that TI will report a
17% drop in its quarterly sales compared with the same period a
year ago.