Stocks Rise as Tech Leads Market Higher

Investors started buying beaten-down stocks Friday, especially in the tech sector, to lift the Nasdaq composite index into positive territory and shortly thereafter boosting other major indexes.

Google Inc., Oracle Corp. Intel Corp., Amazon, Dell Inc. and Cisco Systems Inc. were all higher shortly after the opening bell, and Clearwire Corp., which provides wireless broadband service, rocketed up 36 percent. That helped push the beaten down, tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index into positive territory.

Not all tech companies rose. Hewlett-Packard Co. plunged 20 percent after unveiling a strategic shift one day after the company announced it will reshape its business by spinning-off its PC unit which currently comprises 30 percent of its sales volume.

We are directionally positive on the shift to high-growth, high-margin business but this transformation is proving expensive, protracted and includes significant integration risk, said Robert W. Baird in a research note.

But overall the tech sector buoyed the Nasdaq, which was up 1.2 percent one hour into the trading session.

Investors also sold 10-year Treasuries, which they had piled into recently for the perceived safety of U.S. government debt, indicating they were ready to put their money into riskier assets, including silver mining companies. The interest rate on 10-year Treasuries climbed to 2.12 percent, after briefly slipping below 2 percent on Thursday.