TECH STOCKS: Tech Stocks Try To Cling To Early Gains

By Rex Crum, MarketWatch

Apple, Facebook among leaders still on the rise

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch)--Tech stocks tried to hold on to gains as trading advanced Thursday following initial broad upbeat reaction to the latest U.S. jobs data.

Among tech stocks on the rise were Apple Inc. (AAPL), Facebook Inc. (FB), Netflix Inc. (NFLX), Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) and online retailer Overstock.com Inc. (OSTK).

Security software company Symantec Corp. (SYMC) rose 3% to $24.52. Late Wednesday, Symantec reported a fiscal first-quarter profit of 45 cents a share, excluding one-time items, on revenue of $1.74 billion, while Wall Street analysts had forecast Symantec to earn 42 cents a share on $1.67 billion in sales.

Much of the sector's early gains were tied to investors' getting behind the Labor Department's report that said initial jobless claims fell below 300,000 last week.

But decliners began to take over, with losses coming from Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ), Yahoo Inc. (YHOO), Oracle Corp. (ORCL) and Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN).

Online discount retailer Zulily Inc. (ZU) fell more than 6%, to $36.91 a share. Late Wednesday, Zulily reported a fiscal second-quarter profit of 6 cents a share on $285 million in revenue, while analysts had forecast earnings of 4 cents a share on revenue or $272 million. The company forecast third-quarter revenue in a range of $275 million to $287.5 million, while analysts had pegged sales at $283.3 million.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index (RIXF) rose by 3 points to 4,358.

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