Market Update: Nasdaq Dips With Weakness in Chips

<LI>Retailers dip despite analyst upgrades.</LI> <LI>Oil stocks climb higher.</LI> <LI>Networking companies slide.</LI>

Author:: David A. Gaffen
Publish date:: Feb 5, 2001 12:09 PM EST

Investors were lukewarm on technology stocks this morning, but they were giving some lift to blue-chips in what is a mixed day on Wall Street.

The tech-loaded

Nasdaq was sagging as investors await word from

Cisco

(CSCO) - Get Report

, which reports fourth-quarter earnings tomorrow. The stock was a popular whipping post, with the networking giant lately off 4.4%. It was the most actively traded stock on the Nasdaq.

Other networkers,

Cabletron Systems

(CS) - Get Report

Nortel Networks

(NT)

and

Avaya

(AV)

were following Cisco's lead. Cabletron was lately losing 4.5%, Nortel was losing 2% and Avaya was losing 2.9%. The

Amex Networking Index

was lately down 1.9%.

The semiconductor sector was getting slammed by a

negative report about inventories in the sector that just came out from the

Semiconductor Industry Association

. Analysts have commented that inventory levels have worsened in recent months and could likely take to the end of the second quarter to burn off. Semiconductor titan

Intel

(INTC) - Get Report

was off 3.9%, and the

Philadelphia Stock Exchange Semiconductor Index

was falling 4.4%.

The majority of the major tech bellwethers were also lower.

Sun Microsystems

(SUNW) - Get Report

was down 2.6%, and PC makers

Hewlett-Packard

(HWP)

and

Dell

(DELL) - Get Report

were falling.

The blue-chip

Dow, meanwhile, was higher. Leading the index higher were consumer products giant

(MMM) - Get Report

and

ExxonMobil

(XOM) - Get Report

. Exxon and other oil stocks were getting a major boost from rises in crude oil prices. Oil prices on Friday had their biggest gains in two weeks, and they were rising again this morning.

The

American Stock Exchange Oil & Gas Index

was up almost 1%.

One of the latest energy companies to report strong fourth-quarter earnings because of high oil prices,

Williams

(WMB) - Get Report

was up 2.6%. The company reported fourth-quarter earnings per share of 57 cents this morning, well above the 22-cent estimate expected by the analysts polled by

First Call/ Thomson Financial

Phillips Petroleum

(P)

wasn't participating in that party. The stock was down 10.7% after announcing yesterday that it had agreed to buy

Tosco

(TOS)

for $7 billion in stock. Tosco was trading 13.2% higher.