The relentlessness of profit statements and the pessimism they have engendered kept technology issues mostly in check for the session. Shares of Micron Technology, for example, fell $3.72 to $41.53 after the chip maker reported its fiscal second-quarter earnings late Thursday, that apparently disappointed investors because it did not provide any incremental information that added to the company's comments of the previous week. Other chip makers also tumbled. Xilinx fell 1.81 to 35.13 in Nasdaq Stock Market trading, falling to a 52-week low, after Salomon Smith Barney lowered its earnings forecasts for the maker of programmable logic devices.

However, investors did show a little appetite for some cutting-edge technology product developers that offer some significant upside when the profit picture ultimately improves, because of how beaten down their valuations have become. Brocade Communications, for example, tacked on 1.55 to 20.89, after falling to a 52-week low on Thursday. Verisign gained 3.19 to 35.44, while Siebel Systems, coming off Thursday's 52-week low, advanced 1.32 to 27.20, and Veritas Software, also coming off a low set Thursday, improved 3.20 to 46.24, all on Nasdaq.

Those gains helped the Nasdaq composite Index to finish the session in the black, up 19.69 points, or 1.08 per cent, at 1840.26.

It was an uncharacteristically tame performance that stood in contrast to the volatile swings and sharp losses the index endured throughout the first quarter of the year and the final month of that quarter. Nasdaq tumbled 25.5 per cent in the quarter, its worst first quarter ever and fourth-worst overall.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average also managed to finish on the plus side on Friday, closing at 9878.78, up 0.81 per cent, or 79.72 points. It had its worst first quarter in 23 years, down 8.4 per cent. The industrial average got some support on Friday from its financial components, such as JP Morgan, which rose 1.90 to 44.90, and American Express, which rose 2.34 to 41.30. A report in Business Week magazine suggested Citigroup may be looking at the company with thoughts of a takeover. American Express declined to comment. Citigroup moved ahead 28 cents to 44.98.

-- The Wall Street Journal