Tech Winners & Losers: Palm

Updated from 2:05 p.m. EDT with new stock prices

Tech stocks gained Thursday along with the major market indices on a better-than-expected retail sales report and an optimistic PC sales forecast.

Handset maker Palm(PALM Quote) gained 67 cents, or 10.7%, to $6.96 after it worked out a deal to offer its Centro smartphone on Verizon's(VZ Quote) wireless network.

Priced at $99 and introduced first on the Sprint Nextel(S Quote) network last year, Centro has become popular for its price and features. Palm also said it expects to reach 2 million in sales of Centro phones this year.

Nortel Networks(NT Quote) was up 83 cents, or 9%, to $10.03 after an analyst at JPMorgan upgraded the stock to overweight from neutral. The change in rating followed Nortel's announcement affirming its full-year outlook during an investor meeting Wednesday.

Shares of Qualcomm(QCOM Quote) were up $2.70, or 5.8%, to $49.01 after the company raised its guidance for the fiscal third quarter and full-year 2008. Qualcomm said the migration to higher-speed 3G wireless networks worldwide will help boost its revenue.

Dell(DELL Quote) added 36 cents, or 1.5%, to $23.76 after industry research firm Gartner said PC sales will increase 12.5% from a year ago to 297 million units. The company had earlier forecast a growth of 10.9%. Dell rival Hewlett-Packard(HPQ Quote) was up 52 cents, or 1.1%, to $47.00.

Shares of Qimonda(QI Quote) added 45 cents, or 10.5%, to $4.75 after a report in a German newspaper said that Japanese company Elpida is open to a share swap or buying a stake in Qimonda.