Posted on: Friday, December 10, 2004
National Semiconductor turns market back up
By Michael J. Martinez
Associated Press
NEW YORK — Stocks rebounded from early losses yesterday, closing higher as National Semiconductor Corp.'s better-than-expected earnings soothed investors' concerns over higher unemployment and rising oil prices.
"You saw the markets just turn right around after National Semi released their figures," said Keith Keenan, vice president of institutional trading at Wall Street Access. "That helped restore a little optimism in the market, but there's still a lot to be worried about. This could be pretty short-lived."
The Dow Jones industrial average rose 58.59, or 0.56 percent, to 10,552.82. The Dow had been down more than 75 points earlier in the session. The Nasdaq composite index gained 2.90, or 0.14 percent, to 2,129.01.
The good news from National Semiconductor helped the technology-heavy Nasdaq move into positive territory. Tech stocks started the session lower after Xilinx Inc. and Altera Corp., the two biggest makers of programmable microchips, each reported a larger drop in sales than expected. National Semiconductor gained 79 cents to $16.79, Xilinx fell $1.01 to $29.72, and Altera tumbled $1.73 to $20.47.
Advancing issues outnumbered decliners nearly 7 to 6 on the New York Stock Exchange, where preliminary volume was 2.09 billion shares, compared with 1.94 billion on Wednesday.
National Semiconductor's 22 percent rise in quarterly profits also offset poor sales figures from two other semiconductor makers and helped tech shares post small gains. The markets were headed substantially lower in early trading, because of the troubling economic data, before the chip maker released its earnings report.
