By Dan Gallagher, MarketWatch
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Black Friday appeared to draw
bargain investors to the tech sector, as heavily battered stocks
like Hewlett-Packard, Dell and Research In Motion made strong gains
in the shortened trading session.
The Nasdaq Composite (RIXF) was up nearly 1% to 2,954 by the
final hour of trades, while the Morgan Stanley High-Tech Index
picked up 1.3% and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOX) rose
1.7%.
Most notably, Research In Motion Ltd. (RIMM) saw its U.S.-listed
shares jump more than 14% to $11.75 after an analyst for National
Bank in Toronto raised his price target to $15 from $12, reflecting
an increased shipment target for the new BlackBerry 10 smartphone
handsets expected to launch in February.
"The shipment boost reflects about one more month of BB10
product availability plus a little extra for the positive sentiment
building in the industry from our discussions," analyst Kris
Thompson wrote.
RIM got a strong bounce earlier in the week, after Peter Misek
of Jefferies & Co. upgraded the stock to a hold rating, citing
research that shows wireless carriers "have a much more positive
view of BB10 than we expected." The stock is up about 25% so far
for this week -- but remains down about 30% from this same time
last year.
H-P (HPQ) picked up 4.3% to trade at $12.46. The stock took a
beating earlier in the week, before it reported disappointing
results for its fiscal fourth quarter and made a surprising
allegation of accounting fraud at its recently acquired Autonomy
software business.
Dell (DELL) was up about 5.5% while AMD (AMD) rose by 4.8%. All
three firms have been heavily battered by the sharp slowdown in PC
sales this year.
Other strong gainers on Friday included Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) ,
Micron Technology Inc. (MU) and Juniper Networks Inc. (JNPR).
Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) made a fractional gain on Black Friday.
Facebook Inc. (FB) and LinkedIn Corp. (LNKD) were down.
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