By Rex Crum, MarketWatch
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Tech stocks began the week mixed
Monday, with Apple Inc. and AOL Inc. posting gains but Google Inc.
suffering losses in the wake of chairman Eric Schmidt's plan to
sell a large piece of his company stockholdings.
Apple (AAPL) shares added 1% to close at $479.93 following
reports that the company may be developing a watch-like device that
would run on the company's iOS operating system, which is used on
the iPhone and iPad. Analysts have also begun weighing in on the
subject of whether Apple should return more of its cash to
shareholders.
AOL (AOL) shares rose more than 7% to close at $36.23. RBC
Capital Markets analyst Mark Mahaney raised his rating on the
online media company's stock to outperform from sector perform.
Mahaney cited AOL's fourth-quarter earnings report, in which
year-over-year revenue rose for the first time in eight years,
among the reasons for his upgrade.
Online social-gaming company Zynga Inc. (ZNGA) rose 7% to close
at $3.67. Director Brett Ratner said he is working with a Canadian
production company to produce a TV version of Zynga's popular
"Farmville" game title.
Dell Inc. (DELL) rose 7 cents a share to close at $13.70. The PC
giant looked to defend its plans to go private when, on Monday, it
said in an SEC filing that the deal moves the risks of the business
from shareholders to the investors leading the buyout, including
Chief Executive Michael Dell.
Dell put the statement out after Southeastern Asset Management,
its biggest institutional shareholder, came out against the plans
to take the company private.
Google (GOOG) shares were trimmed by $2.35 to close at $782.42
after chairman Eric Schmidt said in a filing on Friday with the
Securities and Exchange Commission that he is planning to sell as
much as 3.2 million share of Google stock, representing about 42%
of his holdings in the company. The sale would be worth $2.5
billion.
Netflix Inc. (NFLX) fell 1.7% to close at $177.89 after the
Starz (STRZA) cable TV network reached a deal to be the exclusive
pay-TV site for Sony Pictures (SNE) movies through 2021.
BlackBerry (RIMM) shares fell 4.6% to close at $15.73 on reports
that Home Depot (HD) will replace 10,000 BlackBerry smartphones
used by its store managers and corporate staff with Apple
iPhones.
Other losses came from Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ), Facebook Inc.
(FB), Adobe Systems Inc. (ADBE) and International Business Machines
Corp. (IBM).
(IBM)The Nasdaq Composite Index (RIXF) ended the day down by
almost 2 points to close at 3,192, while the Philadelphia
Semiconductor Index (SOX) managed to eke out a small gain.
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