By Rex Crum, MarketWatch
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Facebook Inc. shares jumped
Monday morning, helping to lead the tech sector higher as the
social-media giant's shares hit a new 52-week high, while Microsoft
shares gave back some earlier gains that had come with the news
that CEO Steve Ballmer would retire.
Facebook (FB) climbed 2.7%, to reach $41.62, adding to gains
that have lifted the company's stock by more than 57% since it
reported its most-recent quarterly results, on July 24. Facebook
went public last May at $38 per share.
Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) shares shed 2% to slip to $34.05. The
stock had jumped on Friday after Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said
he would retire within the next year.
On Monday, VMware Inc. (VMW) said it had hired Microsoft Chief
Information Officer Tony Scott to be CIO and senior vice president
at the cloud-infrastructure and virtualization technology company.
Over the weekend, the AllThingsD technology blog reported that
activist fund ValueAct might continue to press for more
accommodations from the company, like an increased dividend or
buyback.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index (RIXF) rose 0.4% to 3,673,
while the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOX) and the Morgan
Stanley High Tech 35 Index (MSH) rose by a fraction.
Early gains also came from Apple Inc. (AAPL), Groupon Inc.
(GRPN), Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ) and Oracle Corp. (ORCL). Small
losses also came from Seagate Technology (STX), Netflix Inc.
(NFLX), Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) and Yelp Inc. (YELP).
Shares of two 3D printing firms jumped as Citigroup kicked off
coverage of the pair with buy ratings. In early trades, 3D Systems
Corp. (DDD) was up 7.6% to $52.10, while Stratasys (SSYS) jumped 6%
to $112.23.
In a note to clients, analyst Kenneth Wong said he believes the
3D printing market "is on the cusp of seeing much broader adoption
across more upstream production applications and the consumer end
market," which could triple the size of the market within 5
years.
Altera Corp. (ALTR) shares rose nearly 2% after Citigroup
upgraded the chipmaker to a buy rating. Software maker Adobe (ADBE)
rose 1.5% after Pacific Crest upgraded the stock to outperform.
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