Leading Wall Street shares headed into negative territory for the second straight day as investors continued to lock in gains despite an upgrade for chipmakers. By mid-morning, the Dow Jones was down 20.37 points to 9,789.42 and the Nasdaq fell by 11.16 points to 1,959.58. Investors took profits for the second session in a row today amid concerns surrounding the possible negative effects of a rise in interest rates, with the possibility that the Fed may hike rates in an effort to stave off the threat of inflation. Today's fall in the main indices was limited by a batch of positive corporate news in the tech sector. Chipmaker Intel rose 1.6pc after JP Morgan upgraded the stock to "overweight" from "neutral" and raised its sales and earnings outlook. Intel's stock has almost doubled in the past year.
Chipmakers Linear Technology, Microchip Technologies and Xilinx all rose by around 1pc after an upgrade for the sector from Merrill Lynch. IBM rose by almost 2pc after an article in the influential magazine Barron's said the computer hardware maker would benefit from an imminent uplift in business spending on technology. //www.fxcentre.com