Stocks eked out modest gains yesterday as investors snapped up some beaten-down shares but were treading gingerly ahead of this week's slew of earnings reports. `People are doing a little bit of bargain hunting," said Paul Cherney, market analyst at S&P Marketscope. `There's so much pent-up buying demand. There are so many people that just want to believe in anything."

The market got an early boost when Web retailing giant Amazon.com forecast a smaller-than-expected loss, giving investors an incentive to dip a toe back into stocks with less than a week after the Nasdaq market slumped to fresh two-year lows.

The Nasdaq Composite Index rose 25.35 points, or 1.47 per cent, to end at 1,745.71, buoyed by Internet and biotechnology stocks. But weakness in semiconductors capped the Nasdaq's gain after brokerage houses suggested the sector was headed for its worst slump in 16 years, slapping sector leaders like Intel Corp.

The blue-chip Dow Jones gains were limited, however, by weakness in high-tech shares like chip behemoth Intel, which fell 43 cents to $23.20 after slumping to a 52-week low of $22.25, and computing giant International Business Machines,down $1.95 at $96.00. The broad Standard & Poor's 500 Index added 9.16 points, or 0.81 per cent, to 1,137.59.