NEW YORK (CNN/Money) -
Technology stocks lost ground Friday on high oil prices and lowered earnings forecasts, failing to close higher before the weekend in keeping with a mostly upbeat performance over the last two weeks.
The tech-dominated Nasdaq Composite index shed 6.95 points, or 0.4 percent, to close at 1,879.48. The Philadelphia Semiconductor index gained 11.24 points, or 2.6 percent, to close at 382.55.
The European Commission is still in talks with Oracle Corp. over its plan to take over rival software firm PeopleSoft Inc., but it intends to make a decision before the end of October, a Commission spokeswoman said Friday.
She declined to comment on a report in the Financial Times that Oracle's bid would be approved, adding that the Commission was still in discussion with Oracle.
Shares inPeopleSoft (PSFT: up $0.74 to $19.99, Research, Estimates) rose 3.8 percent on the news, while Oracle (ORCL: down $0.01 to $11.04, Research, Estimates) stock remained relatively flat.
Cisco shares fell 2.7 percent after news that Italian telecoms-equipment maker Italtel will be floated on Milan's stock exchange next spring rather than at the end of this year as originally planned.
Cisco owns 18.4 percent stake in Italtel, with which it also has a technological and commercial partnership.
Cogent Inc. (COGT: up $5.98 to $17.98, Research, Estimates), which provides fingerprint identification systems to government and law enforcement agencies, saw it's shares soar almost 50 percent Friday after the company's initial public offering Thursday.
The IPO raised a higher-than-expected $216 million, the underwriter said Thursday, as the company benefited from investor interest in homeland security stocks.
Among tech heavyweights, Cisco (CSCO: down $0.50 to $18.40, Research, Estimates), Intel (INTC: down $0.25 to $20.13, Research, Estimates), Microsoft (MSFT: down $0.06 to $27.29, Research, Estimates), Yahoo (YHOO: down $0.46 to $32.58, Research, Estimates), Google (GOOG: down $0.99 to $119.83, Research, Estimates) and eBay (EBAY: down $0.88 to $89.22, Research, Estimates) shares all lost value.
Shares of Dell (DELL: up $0.15 to $35.05, Research, Estimates) and IBM (IBM: up $0.55 to $84.43, Research, Estimates) made gains.
In other news, former Qwest Communications International Inc. (Q: down $0.01 to $3.07, Research, Estimates) executive Tom Hall pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor count of falsely certifying a document as part of a plea deal with prosecutors in an accounting fraud case. The plea agreement did not detail whether Hall would be imprisoned.
And Europe's top consumer electronics group Philips cut the salesforecast for its closely watched chip unit; it also predicted much slower growth for the semiconductor industry next year.
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