By Benjamin Pimentel, MarketWatch

Shares of Apple Inc. edged lower Monday ahead of the company's big developer conference, while Broadcom rallied after the chip-maker said it's exploring whether to abandon the cellphone baseband business.

Apple (AAPL) was down nearly 1% as the iPhone maker geared up for its Worldwide Developer Conference, known as WWDC. The stock was still up 17% this quarter amid speculation that Apple was going to unwrap a major product or service.

The tech sector got a boost from shares of Broadcom (BRCM), which were up nearly 8%. The chip company announced Monday that it was exploring the sale of its cellular baseband business, which is expected to cut expenses by $700 million.

But technology stocks took a hit from declining shares of Google Inc.(GOOGL), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) and Facebook Inc.(FB) Google was down 2%, while Facebook and H-P each shed 1%.

The Nasdaq Composite Index (RIXF) slipped by 0.5% to 4,222. The Morgan Stanley High Tech 35 Index (MSH) was off a fraction, while the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOX) was flat.

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