NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - The tech investor is a fickle beast.

Semiconductor kingpin Intel (Research), online auction company eBay (Research) and communications equipment firm Juniper Networks (Research) reported first-quarter earnings on Wednesday that were roughly in line with analysts' expectations. Cell phone chipset manufacturer Qualcomm (Research) reported results that topped consensus forecasts. And Apple (Research) posted earnings that were better than expectations.

Tech earnings on parade: Investors cheered results from Intel and Apple but were disappointed by 1Q reports from eBay, Juniper and Qualcomm.

But Wall Street had markedly different reactions to these reports. Intel shot up about 2 percent and Apple surged more than 4 percent in after-hours trading while eBay, Qualcomm and Juniper took a tumble. (For more on Juniper's earnings, click here.)

That's a stark contrast to what happened Tuesday. Solid earnings reports from online media firm Yahoo!, cell phone chip maker Texas Instruments and computer services and software giant IBM were all cheered by investors.

Mark Demos, a research analyst with Fifth Third Asset Management, said that Intel was boosted, despite the fact that its profits fell on a year-over-year basis, because expectations were fairly low heading into the first quarter reports. That's similar to what happened with Yahoo! on Tuesday. Investors were breathing a sigh of relief that the results weren't worse.

(For more about Intel's earnings report, click here.)

As for Apple, the company continues to wow Wall Street thanks to strong sales of its popular iPod music player, said Todd Campbell, president of E.B. Capital Markets, an independent research firm catering to institutional investors.

(For more about Apple's results, click here.)

Qualcomm and eBay, however, may have stumbled because investors had higher hopes for the two following the strong results from Texas Instruments and Yahoo! respectively, Campbell said. So their numbers were good, but apparently not good enough.

"PayPal is a good business for eBay and if you look at all the companies that reported after the bell on Wednesday, Qualcomm's were the most exciting," said Campbell.

(For more about Qualcomm's latest report, click here. And for more about eBay's earnings, click here.)

Nonetheless, some analysts and fund managers said that the first-quarter earnings period for tech overall is off to a promising start.

"Many of the blue-chips in tech are doing well," said Ted Parrish, co-manager of the Henssler Equity fund. "We're in good position to have a nice first quarter." Among the blue-chip tech stocks that his fund owns are IBM, Microsoft, Intel and Cisco Systems.

Another analyst said that the semiconductor sector in particular looks like it has momentum on its side. To that end, chip equipment firm Lam Research reported healthy results last week, as did TI on Tuesday and Qualcomm on Wednesday.

"The semi cycle may have more legs. Save for Intel, fundamentals in chips haven't deteriorated and Intel is a special situation. It focuses mainly on one area and is losing share to its top rival AMD," said Scott Kessler, head of tech sector equity research for Standard & Poor's.

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The pressure is on Google to report strong earnings. Click here.

For a look at more tech sectors and stocks, click here.