Throughout 2008, technology stocks have largely failed to live up to their billing as a "safe haven" amid the credit storm. Even after Wednesday's bounce, the Tech Select SPDR (XLK) is down nearly 14% year-to-date, worse than the bank-ridden S&P 500.

But that is no reason to give up on the sector and bargains abound, says James Altucher, managing director of Formula Capital, author and founder of Stockpickr.

In the accompanying video, Altucher makes the case for three tech stocks: ValueClick, QLogic and Harmonic.

None of these three names get a lot of attention from the press, but they also share characteristics that should command investors' attention: solid cash holdings, no debt, and relatively low valuations.

Altucher goes over the particulars for each and also discusses why he believe ValueClick's decision this week to tender for million of deep out-of-the-money employee stock options is a bullish signal.

Bounce it did, with the Dow rising 1.4% Tuesday while the S&P gained 1.7% and the Nasdaq jumped 2.3%. Tech shares continued their recent trend of outperformance, with the notable exception of VMWare, which tumbled on the ouster of its CEO, and EMC, which still owns a big stake in the firm. (After the close, Cisco shares slipped after John Chambers said Cisco's leadership team is "very likely to be different five years from now than it was five years ago," which some interpreted as a sign he's thinking about retiring.)

Falling oil prices presumably helped stocks today, but conspiracy theorists can be forgiven to wonder if the "plunge protection team" was at work, especially in the final two hours of trading when the market ramped higher.

Early in the day, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke reiterated the Fed's commitment to aiding ailing financial institutions. In a separate but related move, OFHEO chief James Lockhart addressed Monday's primary concern, saying new accounting rule changes should make "no difference in the risks" of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Fannie and Freddie rebounded sharply (in percentage terms) Tuesday as did financial stocks like Wachovia, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch and Washington Mutual.

Many attributed the rally to the combined Bernanke-Lockhart commentary, which was clearly designed to soothe traders' jittery nerves. But the reality is the broad market was flat and the financials didn't really take off until about 2:00 p.m. EDT. » More

Dell reported fiscal first quarter earnings of 38 cents a share and revenue of $16 billion vs. consensus expectations of 34 cents and $15.7 billion.

"We are executing on all points of our strategy to drive growth in every product category and in every part of the world," chairman and CEO Michael Dell said in a statement.

Dell shares are up 8% in the initial after-hours reaction.

Either Michael Dell has a very good poker face or people misread his "body language" at the AllThingsD conference, where his presentation was widely panned as lacking excitement or new info.

A lackluster finish took some shine off the tech stocks, which began Monday with a big deal-induced rally.

While renewed talks between Microsoft and Yahoo got most of the media attention, many traders were buzzing about a Barron's story on the possibility of a Cisco-EMC merger. I delved into the details of such a combination with the author of that story, Barron's West Coast editor Eric Savitz.

Beyond EMC's networking storage business, the company's majority ownership of VMWare and software units such as RSA would help Cisco make a big step beyond its core networking communications business, Savitz says.

Stressing this is just speculation, Savitz says Cisco has both the money and the motivation to buy EMC. While deal rumors have persisted for months, he says, "If [Cisco CEO John] Chambers has ever thought about buying EMC, he might not get a better price than today's."

Every parent knows kids sometimes only hear what they want to hear. Follow the financial markets for a while and you'll see that traders are similarly capable -- generally speaking, of course.

Evidence of selective hearing was everywhere Monday where traders --determined to take the market higher after last week's slide -- simply heard what they wanted to hear and ignored the rest.

A warning from FedEx? Lousy numbers from MBIA? Already baked into the stocks!

The new Blackberry "Bold"? We didn't see that coming despite all the anticipatory chatter! This is the revolutionary device Research in Motion needs to compete with the iPhone. 'Bold' is worth $5.3 billion to RIM's market cap -- but we love Apple shares too!

HP buying EDS? OK, we didn't see that one coming and we're worried Mark Hurd has bitten off more than he should chew. But EDS stock is taking off like a rocket!

But the most glaring example of Wall Street's selective hearing had to be its response (or lack thereof) to comments from JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon.

Falling crude prices, earnings and merger activity provided a fundamental basis for the advance.

In addition to Yahoo's results, last night brought solid results and guidance from Broadcom and VMWare. Broadcom also benefited from the settlement of backdating options charges with the SEC, and both stocks were getting an extra boost from shorts covering their positions.

This morning brought strong results and guidance from Boeing, good enough results from EMC, and news of Liberty Mutual's bid for Safeco.

Additionally, it appears Jeff Saut was correct when he said Tuesday's slide was a technical phenomenon and the market primed for more upside, as detailed here.

Optimism is also coming from Dennis Gartman who is "quietly turning bullish" on shares after shedding a long-held bearish stance and moving to neutral earlier this month.» More

In an effort to both steal Yahoo's earnings thunder and strike a blow against Google, Microsoft launched a live preview version of Mesh Tuesday evening.

Mesh is Microsoft's answer to cloud computing, a potential paradigm shift in computing.

"To individuals, the concept of 'My Computer' will give way to the concept of a personal mesh of devices -- a means by which all of your devices are brought together, managed through the web, as a seamless whole," Microsoft chief software architect Ray Ozzie said in a memo about Mesh.

But rather than a true effort to allow users to access documents and applications from any device, anytime, anywhere, Mesh looks like an attempt to adapt the cloud concept to a PC-centric world.

More importantly, Intel gave second-quarter guidance revenue guidance with a midpoint of $9.3 billion vs. the consensus of $9.24 billion, and sees gross margins rising back to 56% in the second quarter and the 57% range for the full year.

"Our first quarter results demonstrate a strengthening core business and a solid global market environment," Intel CEO Paul Otellini said in a prepared statement. "We saw healthy demand for our leading-edge processors and chipsets across all segments. Looking forward, we remain optimistic about our growth opportunities..."

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When UPS issued a profit warning late Tuesday it confirmed the weakness emanating from Alcoa, AMD, and Novellus. Combined with the Fed minutes' warning about the possibility of a "severe and protracted downturn," it's no wonder the stock market struggled early Wednesday. (Maybe a bigger surprise is that it's not struggling more.)

Just as it took Ben Bernanke & Co. a long time to come to grips with the severity of the slowdown, so too traders are slowly seeing the reality that first-quarter earnings are likely to disappoint -- a surprising profit from Circuit City notwithstanding.

Tech tidbits this morning include a tepid defense of Yahoo by Legg Mason's Bill Miller, Motorola naming former AT&T chief David Dorman as non-executive chairman, EMC buying Iomega for $213 million, and chip-equipment maker FormFactor lowering its first-quarter outlook and slashing staff.

Speaking of which, a day after warning and announcing big layoffs, AMD now says its long-awaited Barcelona chip is available for distribution -- unfortunately, a day late and a dollar short for AMD shareholders and many employees.