Friday's Tech Winners & Losers: Dell
SAN FRANCISCO - Solid earnings beats on Thursday helped to lift all boats in Friday tech trading. The Nasdaq outperformed broader market indices, which were up slightly. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index rose 2.3%, reflecting good reports from the electronics sector.
Dell
(DELL) - Get Report
shares rose $1.81, or 8.3%, to $23.62 after
the Texas PC maker topped analysts' estimates Thursday
on strength in notebooks and international sales.
"The key difference this quarter ... was that Dell was able to translate its strong unit growth ... into solid revenue," American Technology Research analyst Shaw Wu wrote in a note Friday. But worrying factors continue to be the limitations of Dell's direct sales model, few product offerings outside PCs and smaller international exposure, Wu stated.
Marvell Technology
(MRVL) - Get Report
jumped $3.32, or 23.6%, to $17.40 on
Thursday's news that the chipmaker swung to a profit
in its first quarter.
The company earned $69.9 million, or 11 cents a share, vs. a loss of $52.8 million, or negative 9 cents a share, for the same quarter a year ago.
Software developer
Wind River Systems
( WIND) climbed $1.40, or 15.6%, to $10.36 after
delivering a solid first-quarter report Thursday
.
Wind River, which sells Linux operating systems to device makers, posted a profit of $324,000, vs. a loss of $4.6 million one year ago. Excluding special items, EPS was 9 cents, 7 cents ahead of analysts' estimates. Executives on the conference call said during the quarter that the company landed a very large "broad-based technology" client that delivers Linux-based products to several industries, or vertical markets. The deal represents "multiple millions" of dollars, CFO Ian Halifax said.
Linux software developer
Novell
( NOVL)
in its second quarter.
Novell's net income moved to $5.9 million, or 2 cents a share, from a loss of $2.9 million, or a penny a share, in the year-ago period.
On the losing side,
Sigma Designs
(SIGM)
dropped $3.83, or 17.5%, to $18.08 after the chip-design company said first-quarter net income fell to $4.7 million, or 16 cents a share, from $5.4 million, or 20 cents a share, in the same period of last year. Excluding special items, EPS came in at 40 cents, two pennies behind analysts' expectations.
And
Yahoo!
(YHOO)
shares were off 30 cents, or 1.1%, to $26.77 after the
Federal Trade Commission
gave activist investor Carl Icahn a green light to proceed with more block buys of Yahoo! shares.
Icahn has launched a proxy fight to unseat Yahoo!'s board, which recently spurned
Microsoft's
(MSFT) - Get Report
$33-a-share offer.