TECH STOCKS: RIM Surges As H-P, Dell Lead Strong Tech Gains

By Dan Gallagher, MarketWatch

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Black Friday appeared to draw bargain investors to the tech sector, as heavily battered stocks like Hewlett-Packard, Dell and Research In Motion made strong gains in the shortened trading session.

The Nasdaq Composite (RIXF) was up nearly 1% to 2,954 by the final hour of trades, while the Morgan Stanley High-Tech Index picked up 1.3% and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOX) rose 1.7%.

Most notably, Research In Motion Ltd. (RIMM) saw its U.S.-listed shares jump more than 14% to $11.75 after an analyst for National Bank in Toronto raised his price target to $15 from $12, reflecting an increased shipment target for the new BlackBerry 10 smartphone handsets expected to launch in February.

"The shipment boost reflects about one more month of BB10 product availability plus a little extra for the positive sentiment building in the industry from our discussions," analyst Kris Thompson wrote.

RIM got a strong bounce earlier in the week, after Peter Misek of Jefferies & Co. upgraded the stock to a hold rating, citing research that shows wireless carriers "have a much more positive view of BB10 than we expected." The stock is up about 25% so far for this week -- but remains down about 30% from this same time last year.

H-P (HPQ) picked up 4.3% to trade at $12.46. The stock took a beating earlier in the week, before it reported disappointing results for its fiscal fourth quarter and made a surprising allegation of accounting fraud at its recently acquired Autonomy software business.

Dell (DELL) was up about 5.5% while AMD (AMD) rose by 4.8%. All three firms have been heavily battered by the sharp slowdown in PC sales this year.

Other strong gainers on Friday included Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) , Micron Technology Inc. (MU) and Juniper Networks Inc. (JNPR). Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) made a fractional gain on Black Friday. Facebook Inc. (FB) and LinkedIn Corp. (LNKD) were down.

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