Stocks posted slight gains yesterday while blue chips fell, as investors bought shares of companies that had upbeat results, and unloaded those adding to the market's earnings apprehension.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 38.96 points to close at 10,416.67, while the Nasdaq Composite Index rose 6.77 points to 2,029.73. The broad Standard & Poor's 500 index edged up 3 points to 1,205.93.
Brokerage, semiconductor and communication-related tech stocks rose while consumer names fell. Investors snapped up beaten-down high-tech shares, encouraged by upbeat reports from the likes of Qualcomm, whose stock rose $3.52, or 5.9 per cent, to $63.18.
But the chronic drone of confessions and warnings persisted. JDS Uniphase, the world's top supplier of fibre-optic components, fell 92 cents, or 9.7 per cent, to $8.55.
In economic news, the US government said the gross domestic product in the second quarter rose by only 0.7 per cent, the weakest performance in eight years. The market had been expecting a rise of 0.9 percent.
