Eye on the market.(Brief Article)

Tech stocks ended flat to higher last week, as oversold computer shares rebounded, while software issues remained sluggish. Is it the end of a soft patch, which some analysts felt had hit the economy? Morgan Stanley notes that, for the broader averages, the last four weeks have been one of the longest periods of sideways consolidation in recent memory. "This trading range is likely to be resolved within the next week, and both momentum and time factors favor a continuation of the advance to challenge early 2005 highs by mid-July," explains the broker's technician, Mark Newton, to Dow Jones. Everybody has their favorite, with Merrill Lynch's Satya Pradhuman touting small-cap chip stocks, while David Chalupnik of the First American Balanced Fund is betting on storage, as the market is "increasing quite rapidly," he told the news service. Opinions differ as well on what will happen to fundamentals in the second half of the year. Talking to The Wall Street Journal, Nuveen ...