Yahoo leads market revival

TECHNOLOGY stocks led a moderate market advance at midday yesterday after Yahoo! inked a multi-million dollar acquisition, while some positive news on the economy supported a turnaround for the Dow industrials.

Around 12:35 pm ET, The Nasdaq composite, up 16.42 to 1379.47, rose more than 1%, while the Standard & Poor's 500 index, was up 3.46 to 899.22.

The Dow Jones industrial average, up 6.10 to 8517.42, rebounded from early losses on the back of some upbeat economic reports. The University of Michigan's consumer sentiment reading for December came in just a hair above forecasts at 86.7, and 84.2 in October. Economists had forecasted 86.6.

In addition, personal income rose a better-than-expected 0.3% in November compared with an anticipated 0.2% rise, while personal spending for the month came in at 0.5%, up from 0.4% in October.

Market breadth was negative. On the New York Stock Exchange, decliners stayed ahead of advancers 16 to 13 as 368 million shares were traded. On the Nasdaq, advancers narrowly edged decliners as 467 million shares changed hands.