Stocks have pulled up from their early lows, but the morning's tone
remains downbeat. The negative bias persists despite upbeat earnings
per share results from tech giants like IBM (IBM 90.75, -0.77) and
Google (GOOG 370.99, +17.97).
The much smaller Advanced Micro Devices (AMD 4.50, +0.38) is also
trading higher after announcing pleasing quarterly results. AMD
recently announced it was dividing itself so that one company
manufactures microprocessors and the other will design and sell them.