Thursday's Tech Stocks: Good Earnings News Boosts MarketsThursday's Tech Stocks: Good Earnings News Boosts Markets

A rash of better-than-expected earnings combined with some positive economic reports to spur a significant Wall Street rally Thursday. All of the major indexes were up sharply, and major technology issues led the charge. Investors appeared to be convinced of a recovery as they reacted enthusiastically to strong earnings reports. Good earnings news from companies such as Altera, Amazon.com, eBay, and Qualcomm buoyed spirits, as did encouraging reports on new unemployment claims and the producer price index. Wall Street also seemed to embrace the idea that the Fed will act slowly once it decides to begin raising interest rates.

EBay was a big winner, rising $7.81, or 10.4%, to close at $82.59, while Amazon wasn't far behind, rising $3.14, or 6.9%, to $48.86. A third big dot-com-era name, Yahoo, also had a sharp rise, up $3.01, or 5.5%, to $57.59. Networking vendors fared well, too, with Cisco Systems rising 78 cents, or 3.5%, to $23.15, and Juniper rising 99 cents, or 3.8%, to $26.82. The Nasdaq-100 tracking stock rose 93 cents, or 2.6%, to $36.92 on brisk volume of 135 million shares.

Decliners included AT&T, which fell 56 cents to $18.03, despite beating analysts' expectations. The nation's largest long-distance phone company, which recently lost its seat on the Dow, saw a 47% dive in quarterly profits, largely because of restructuring and other charges.

The tech-heavy indexes paced the rally, with the Nasdaq up 37.28, or 1.9%, to $2,032.91, and the information 100 up 5.67 points, or 1.7%, to 333.95. The S&P 500 rose 15.84 points, or 1.4%, to 1,139.93, while the Dow rose 143.93 points, or 1.4%, to close at 10,461.20.

See the full listing of all the companies in the information 100 and the top 5 percentage winners and losers for the last closing at information.com/stocks.