TECH STOCKS: Not Much MovementTECH STOCKS: Not Much Movement

U.S. markets were mixed Wednesday as blue chips drove down the Dow, with much of the negative action spurred by rumors that tobacco company Altria is about to get hit with a loss in a multibillion-dollar class-action suit. But tech sectors fared a little better, and a surge of buying late in the day helped those indexes finish in the black.

Motorola (MOT) rose 3.9%, or 38 cents, to $10.25; Intel (INTC) rose 1.4%, or 33 cents, to $23.48; Palm (PALM) rose 1.2%, or 21 cents, to $17.30; Siebel Systems (SEBL) rose 0.4%, or 4 cents, to $10.25; Oracle (ORCL) fell 0.5%, or 6 cents, to $12.67; Microsoft (MSFT) fell 0.8%, or 23 cents, to $27.47, and Dell Computer (DELL) fell 1.8%, or 62 cents, to $33.17.

For the day, the Nasdaq index rose 0.06%, or 1 point, to 1,747.46, and the information 100 rose 0.87%, or 2.32 points, to 268.44. The Nasdaq-100 tracking stock fell 0.22%, or 7 cents, to $32.21, on volume of 89 million shares. The Dow industrials fell 0.73%, or 66.88 points, to 9,156.21, and the S&P 500 fell 0.56%, or 5.63 points, to 1,002.21.