By Benjamin Pimentel, MarketWatch
Technology stocks were mostly higher Friday, propelled by gains
in shares of Red Hat Inc., which rose sharply a day after posting
upbeat results.
Red Hat (RHT) was rallying more than 19%, the top gainer on the
S&P 500(SPX), which was up 0.4%.
Late Thursday, the open-source software maker reported
better-than-expected profit and revenue. Raymond James analyst
Michael Turtis upgraded the stock to outperform from market
perform, citing an "extremely strong fiscal third quarter."
After a volatile start, BlackBerry (RIMM) shares were up 14%
after the handset-maker reported a third-quarter loss, but also
announced that a five-year contract with manufacturer Foxconn.
Shares of Twitter (TWTR) were also up more than 2%, while Apple
Inc.(AAPL) gained 1.3%.
Oracle (ORCL) was up 0.2%. The Redwood City, Calif.-based
software giant announced Friday that it was buying marketing
software company Responsys for $1.5 billion.
Gains also came from Google Inc.(GOOG), IBM Corp. (IBM) and
Intel Corp. (INTC) On the downside, Facebook Inc. (FB) was off
0.5%, while Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) shed 0.4%.
The Nasdaq Composite Index (RIXF) was up 30 points to 4,088. The
benchmark was poised to end the week with a gain of 2%. The Morgan
Stanley High Tech 35 Index (MSH) and the Philadelphia Semiconductor
Index (SOX) were each up about 1%.
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