NEW YORK (CNN/Money) -
Investors went bargain-hunting for technology stocks Wednesday, helping boost the Nasdaq to a higher close and snap a string of five straight losing sessions.
The Nasdaq composite index held above the psychologically sensitive 2,000 mark, after dipping below it in the previous two sessions. The tech-laced index finished 17.54 points, or 0.9 percent, higher at 2,022.98.
The index closed at its lowest point in this calendar year on Tuesday.
Shares of Sirius Satellite (SIRI: up $0.28 to $2.98, Research, Estimates) jumped more than 10 percent after investment company Stifel Nicolaus raised its rating on the company to "outperform" from "market perform."
Sirius is also the most actively traded stock on Nasdaq.
But a brokerage upgrade failed to boost Yahoo! shares. Yahoo (YHOO: down $0.42 to $43.34, Research, Estimates) stock fell 1.1 percent after Goldman Sachs reiterated its "outperform" rating on the online search services provider.
Ingram Micro (IM: Research, Estimates), the world's largest distributor of computer products, rose 21.7 percent on Wednesday.
After the closing bell Tuesday, the company posted a better-than-expected quarterly profit after a year-earlier loss on lower restructuring costs as sales rose 15 percent.
But Ingram's higher-than-expected sales and profit were helped by the weak U.S. dollar. Company executives joined other high-tech companies in saying that spending on information technology is on the rise, albeit modestly.
Also on the upswing, shares of Rambus (RMBS: up $2.29 to $33.95, Research, Estimates) gained more than 7 percent, a day after the release of a judge's unexpectedly strong opinion rejecting the government's antitrust case against the technology company.
The Federal Trade Commission late Tuesday released the 348-page opinion in which U.S. Administrative Law Judge Stephen McGuire sided with the company on almost every point. He concluded that the FTC had failed to prove charges that Rambus illegally monopolized key computer chip technologies.
McGuire had issued a one-sentence order a week ago dismissing the case filed by antitrust enforcers at the FTC, but his full opinion had not been released until Tuesday.
Elsewhere in tech land, Intel (INTC: up $0.42 to $29.62, Research, Estimates) rose 1.7 percent, while Cisco Systems (CSCO: up $0.53 to $23.58, Research, Estimates) rose 2.5 percent.
Meanwhile, Microsoft (MSFT: down $0.18 to $26.70, Research, Estimates) shares lost 0.7 percent, and shares of IBM (IBM: down $0.25 to $96.54, Research, Estimates) also took a dip on the Big Board.
-- from staff and wire reports
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