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Tech stocks in late rally
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February 8, 2002: 4:45 p.m. ET
Cisco continues to fall, but WorldCom, VeriSign,TriQuint get analyst boosts.
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NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Technology stocks followed the rest of the market in a late-day rally Friday, with strength in networking and telecom overcoming some midday malaise in both the chip and hardware sector.
The tech-laden Nasdaq composite index rose 36.77 to close at 1818.88, up 2.06 percent.
Cisco Systems (CSCO: down $0.30 to $16.76, Research, Estimates) was the most-actively traded stock on the Nasdaq and continued to slide after issuing third-quarter guidance which was not as positive as some investors would like.
But Sun Microsystems (SUNW: up $0.53 to $9.75, Research, Estimates) rose after Merrill Lynch upgraded the largest maker of Unix servers, to "buy" from "neutral," based on what the firm heard about strategy at Sun's Analysts Day meeting Wednesday.
WorldCom (WCOM: up $0.66 to $8.18, Research, Estimates) continued to be heavily traded as J.P. Morgan upgraded the stock to a "buy" from a "long-term buy" with a $12 target, saying the company's recent guidance is realistic and that accounting issues have been clarified.
But another telecom company, Qualcomm (QCOM: down $1.65 to $37.46, Research, Estimates), fell sharply after the specter of questionable accounting raised its head.
The semiconductor sector was mixed, with TriQuint (TQNT: up $0.74 to $10.49, Research, Estimates) rising after U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray raising it to "market perform" from "underperform" after the maker of chips for wireless phones said it expects to see breakeven or a slight per-share loss in the first quarter as business in 2002 starts to recover.
Triquint also reported a fourth-quarter net loss -- including charges -- of 46 cents a share, a sharp decline from earnings of 47 cents a share a year earlier.
Texas Instruments (TXN: up $0.75 to $30.29, Research, Estimates) also rose on an upgrade, as UBS Warburg upped the company to "buy" from "hold" based on an expected increase in earnings.
And industry-leader Intel (INTC: up $0.21 to $32.52, Research, Estimates) managed to eke out a small gain after trading lower most of the day.
But overall, the Philadelphia semiconductor index fell 13.10 to 532.72.
Shares of Optical networking company Corning (GLW: up $1.08 to $7.52, Research, Estimates) rose after the company said that its first-quarter results were largely in line with analysts' estimates and that this could be the bottom for the business on its way to a recovery.
Microsoft (MSFT: up $0.85 to $60.65, Research, Estimates) won a legal victory Friday, when the federal judge in its antitrust case agreed to schedule a hearing some time in the first week of March to approve its settlement agreement with the Justice Department and nine U.S. states. Microsoft had hoped for an approval hearing to take place before a hearing scheduled later in March, in which the judge will hear arguments from nine states that have refused to settle with Microsoft.
Software company VeriSign (VRSN: up $2.96 to $27.06, Research, Estimates) rose sharply, erasing losses earlier this week which came in the wake of the Enron scandal on concerns of the company's large number of affiliates. Analysts said Friday such concerns were unfounded.
The Goldman Sachs software index rose 7.23, 4.39 percent, to 171.84.
Hardware stocks also managed to finish the day mostly higher, with PC-maker Dell (DELL: up $0.05 to $26.25, Research, Estimates) rising slightly in active trading.
The Goldman Sachs hardware index rose 3.97, 1.64 percent, to 245.87. 
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