TECH STOCKS: Another Choppy Day Ends FlatTECH STOCKS: Another Choppy Day Ends Flat

Techs mostly held their own Tuesday, despite a hazardous-material scare at U.S. Senate offices and a still-falling U.S. dollar.

Outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas reported Tuesday that U.S. companies cut their payrolls by 117,556 employees last month, roughly 11% lower than the total recorded a year ago. Many of the layoffs were attributed to certain positions made redundant by mergers and acquisitions and offshore outsourcing.

All of our indexes remained nearly flat for the day. Our information 100 fell 1.25 points, or 0.4%, to close at 328.99. The Nasdaq Composite rose 0.2%, or 3.06 points, to close at 2,066.21. The Dow rose 0.06%, or 6 points, to close at 10,505.18, and the S&P 500 rose 0.07%, or 0.77 point, to 1,136.03.

The Nasdaq-100 tracking stock, which we use to get a better feel for how individual technology shares performed, fell 4 cents, or 0.1%, to close at $36.93.