NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Wall St. ended a choppy week Friday only slightly higher than where it began as a roller-coaster of quarterly results and forward-looking comments kept U.S. stock investors in constant flux.
U.S. blue chip buyers took over in the wake of murky tech outlooks Friday, pushing the Dow Jones industrial average to its third day of gains and its first positive week in three, while the Nasdaq scaled back marginally on the day and moved forward marginally on the week.
The Nasdaq composite closed the week up 7.36 points at 1,937.70, an 0.38 percent gain. The Dow Jones industrial average added 68.23 points, or 0.7 percent, to close at 9,840.08. The Standard & Poor's 500 closed up 0.5 percent, or 5.7 points, at 1,133.28. Markets were only open for four sessions this week, remaining closed on Monday for the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday.
On the Dow, four stocks closed the day up with dollar-plus gains, led by 3M (MMM: up $1.77 to $111.23, Research, Estimates). But many analysts saw the movement as so-called defensive buying, whereby investors moved away from finicky tech stocks and into more traditional safe-haven names.
The latest spate of quarterly results, and more directly, weak profit forecasts, from such tech names as fiber-optics maker JDS Uniphase, mobile phone maker Ericsson, and business software maker PeopleSoft underscored concerns that a profit recovery may not take place quite as soon as many analysts and market participants have been hoping.
"I think things went comparatively well today (Friday)," Peter Mancuso, New York Stock Exchange specialist, Performance Specialist Group, told CNNfn's Street Sweep. "The market has said and (Federal Reserve Chairman) Alan Greenspan has said that the recovery is another quarter away, that it's going to be the third quarter, not the second, which is what people had been thinking."
On Wednesday, the Fed Chair spoke before the Senate Budget Committee on the state of the economy. In a prepared speech, Greenspan told the committee that there are signs the economy is beginning to stabilize.
While the speech in many ways echoed an economic speech given January 11 to local business leaders in San Francisco, investors took it as offering a slightly more optimistic tone than the earlier speech, while many analysts saw it also as a clear indicator that the Fed will halt its aggressive easing campaign, stabilizing the overnight bank lending rate.
Treasurys closed lower, with the yield on the 10-year note rising to 5.08 percent from 5.03 percent late Thursday. Light crude oil futures fell 23 cents to $19.47 a barrel in New York.
Asian markets ended higher, while European bourses closed mostly lower on tech weakness. On the currency market, the dollar strengthened against the euro but pulled back against the yen.
Market breadth was mixed. On the New York Stock Exchange, winners edged losers as 1.32 billion shares changed hands. On the Nasdaq, decliners topped advancers 9-to-8 as 1.64 billion shares traded.
Tech earnings take hold
The latest batch of tech earnings dominated Nasdaq trade, with the sector see-sawing as telecoms, chips, and computer hardware and software struggled to stay in positive territory.
"Right now, we're just digesting. The market is waiting for companies to start saying that future quarters are going to look better," Patricia Chadwick, president at Ravengate Partners, told CNNfn's Market Call.
Among the companies that reporting results or offered forward-looking statements:
JDS Uniphase (JDSU: down $0.73 to $7.16, Research, Estimates) warned that fiscal third-quarter sales will fall 10 percent-to-15 percent below the second quarter. The fiber optic equipment maker also reported a second-quarter loss that was a sharp drop from the same period one year ago, meeting analysts' estimates.
Business software maker PeopleSoft (PSFT: down $2.52 to $35.91, Research, Estimates) forecast weak profit and revenue in 2002. The company also reported a better-than-expected fourth-quarter profit on sales that grew from the same period one year ago.
Contract manufacturer Sanmina-SCI (SANM: down $1.75 to $15.44, Research, Estimates) said revenue and earnings per share for its fiscal second quarter would fall below analysts' estimates. The company also reported earnings -- excluding charges -- of 3 cents per share for the first quarter, missing estimates by a penny and showing a decline from the same period one year earlier.
Mobile phone maker Ericsson (ERICY: down $0.31 to $4.38, Research, Estimates) posted a fourth-quarter loss and said that sales in the first quarter should fall about 31 percent from the fourth quarter, while overall sales for the year could be down as much as 10 percent.
Computer security and Web address provider VeriSign (VRSN: down $1.58 to $34.67, Research, Estimates) fell after it lowered its per share and revenue forecast for the current first quarter as well as 2002. The company also reported a fourth-quarter loss that was narrower than what analysts expected and what the company lost in the same quarter a year earlier.
RSA Security (RSAS: down $4.78 to $11.86, Research, Estimates), an electronic security maker, lost 28 percent of its value after it revealed that the Securities and Exchange Commission has launched a formal investigation into certain discrepancies in its reporting of revenue in the first quarter of 2001. Following the news, J.P. Morgan downgraded its rating on the company's shares to "market perform" from "buy."
Wireless technology developer Qualcomm (QCOM: up $2.34 to $46.05, Research, Estimates) said it expects a 3 percent-to-6 percent revenue decline in the second quarter. The company also reported a fiscal first-year profit after a year-earlier loss, in line with expectations.
Goldman Sachs added communications chipmaker PMC-Sierra (PMCS: up $2.29 to $24.15, Research, Estimates) to its recommended list after the company forecast sales would rise for each quarter of 2002. The company also reported a fourth-quarter loss that was slightly narrower than expected on revenue that fell 80 percent from the same period a year earlier.
Personal computer maker Gateway (GTW: down $1.14 to $5.22, Research, Estimates) said it earned 2 cents a share in the fourth quarter, topping estimates. But the company also announced further layoffs and said that it will continue to see operating losses for the next several quarters.
In the day's economic news, sales of existing homes fell in the United States in December, although overall 2001 sales surged, a real estate group said. 
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