Today: It has been a banner 2010 for tech investors, with biggains for Netflix and Apple shares. The Nasdaq and Dow both climbedfor the year.
Silicon Valley stocks: Gains for Nasdaq, Apple, Netflix
It's New Year's Eve, but -- standing in the way of a long holidayweekend -- it's also the last trading day of the old year for stockinvestors.
Fortunately for those of you who own tech shares, it has been abanner 2010 (at least, given the state of the economy). Even thoughunemployment was high after the Great Recession and home values inthe Bay Area and elsewhere remained far below their peak, the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index (closely watched here in tech-heavySilicon Valley) soared nearly 17 percent from the end of 2009.
The blue chip Dow Jones industrial average -- home to SiliconValley tech titans Intel, Cisco Systems and Hewlett-Packard --climbed 11 percent in 2010.
As for Silicon Valley's biggest tech stocks by market value,Apple, Oracle, Intel, VMware and eBay had gains for the year.
However, Google, Cisco, HP, Gilead Sciences and Yahoo were down.
In particular, it was quite the year for Apple stock, whichjumped more than 53 percent. This year, the Cupertino maker of Maccomputers and "i" devices (iPad, iPhone, iPod) surpassed longtimenemesis Microsoft to become the world's most valuable tech company(which is especially notable considering that Apple had a near-fatal decline in the 1990s, when it lost market share to Microsoft'swidely used Windows operating system).
As 2010 ended, Apple's market value was nearly $296 billion,while Microsoft was worth just $239 billion.
Among other well-known Silicon Valley tech stocks, Netflix stoodout this year with a nearly 219 percent gain.
In 2010, the Los Gatos online DVD rental pioneer transformeditself, making content deals with Hollywood studios and producers toput more emphasis on its "Watch Instantly" Internet streamingservice.
"By every measure, we are now primarily a streaming company thatalso offers DVD-by-mail," CEO Reed Hastings said in Netflix's mostrecent quarterly earnings release.
Today's trading
Here's how Silicon Valley's 10 biggest tech stocks by marketvalue and the major indexes performed for the day:
Up: Oracle, Intel.
Unchanged: Cisco.
Down: Apple, Google, HP, VMware, eBay, Gilead Sciences, Yahoo.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index: Down 10.11, or 0.4percent, to 2,652.87.
The blue chip Dow Jones industrial average: Up 7.80, or 0.1percent, to 11,577.51.
And the widely watched Standard & Poor's 500 index: Down 0.24 to1,257.64.
Check in weekday afternoons for the 60-Second Business Break, asummary of news from Mercury News staff writers, The AssociatedPress, Bloomberg News and other wire services. Contact Frank Russellat 408-920-5876. Follow him at Twitter.com/mercspike.
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