By Benjamin Pimentel
The tech sector made a broad advance Monday as shares of Brocade
Communications Systems Inc. soared on a published report that the
networking company could be put up for sale.
Brocade (BRCD) gained 18.8% after The Wall Street Journal,
citing unnamed sources, reported that the gear maker was
considering selling itself.
The Nasdaq Composite Index (RIXF) rose 1% to 2,068, while the
Morgan Stanley High Tech 35 Index (MSH) added 1.1% and the
Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOX) was up 2.1%.
The tech sector got a boost from other players, including
SanDisk Corp. (SNDK) shares of which rose 4.2%.
Shares of Convergys Corp. (CVG) also jumped, rising 9% as
Citigroup upgraded the services and software company's rating to
buy.
Meanwhile, shares of Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) recovered
from earlier losses brought on when FBR Capital Markets downgraded
the chip maker to market perform from outperform, citing a
"potential PC build pull-in." AMD rose 4.3%.
In downgrading the company, analyst Craig Berger said that,
based on checks with contacts, "October builds will be the peak for
PCs in 2009, whereas usually November is the peak build month."
"While we do not want to get overly bearish ... given improving
global demand and unknown holiday sell-through trends, we feel
these actions are prudent given peaking near-term momentum, more
downstream inventory to digest [at least in China] and a
potentially overheated PC-supply chain," he wrote.