By Rex Crum, MarketWatch
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Tech stocks put in a mostly
upbeat trading performance Tuesday, with Yahoo Inc. and Pandora
Media Inc. among the advancers, but Oracle Corp. declining even
after it announced new partnerships with Microsoft Corp. and
Salesforce.com Inc.
Yahoo Inc. (YHOO) shares rose 3.7%, to close at $24.95 after the
company held its annual shareholders meeting. Chief Executive
Marissa Mayer used the meeting to tout Yahoo's gains in its mobile
business due to revamped apps for email and sharing photos.
Pandora's (P) shares rose more 8.5% to close at $16.41 after the
online radio company said its service is now available in more than
100 automobile models and now has more than 2.5 million listeners
using its service in cars. The number of car models offering
Pandora has doubled from the same period a year ago.
Advances also came from Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ), Seagate
Technology (STX), Intel Corp. (INTC) and eBay Inc. (EBAY).
The Nasdaq Composite Index (RIXF) rose 27 points to 3,347, and
the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOX) ended the day with a
gain of 2.7%
Oracle (ORCL) shed 21 cents a share to close at $29.96 after the
company unveiled a new partnership with Salesforce (CRM) in which
the companies will work together to improve their capabilities in
cloud computing under a nine-year deal.
The deal with Salesforce came after Oracle said late Monday it
reached a new partnership with Microsoft (MSFT) that will let
Oracle's software run on Microsoft's enterprise platforms,
including the Windows Azure cloud infrastructure.
Salesforce shares rose 1.3%, to $37.44 but Microsoft ended the
day down by 5 cents a share at $33.67.
Microsoft was also getting attention a day ahead of its Build
conference, in which the software giant will give developers more
of a look at the Windows 8.1 operating system upgrade, which has
been code-named Windows Blue.
Apple Inc. (AAPL) managed to rise by 9 cents a share and close
at $402.63. Before the market opened, Oppenheimer & Co. analyst
Ittai Kidron cut his price target on Apple's stock to $460 a share
from $480 and lowered his iPhone sales estimates from the June
quarter by 1 million units.
Netflix Inc. (NFLX) shares were trimmed by 1.3% to close at
$212.90 after Bernstein Research analyst Carlos Kirjner cut his
rating on Netflix to underperform from market perform, but raised
his price target on the stock to $180 a share from $125. In a
research note, Kirjner said Netflix's current stock price reflects
"unrealistic" expectations across its business areas.
Demand Media Inc. (DMD) shares fell more than 20%, to close at
$6.50 after the website operator cut its second-quarter revenue
forecast due to a reduction in referral traffic from search engines
such as Google. Analysts as JMP Securities and Stifel Nicolaus also
cut their ratings on Demand Media's stock.
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