By Luke Swiderski
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Dow and S&P stock indexes rose on Wednesday, bolstered by European economic data, while the Nasdaq fell, led by losses in Tesla Motors and as investors readied for Twitter's much-anticipated IPO.
Microsoft Inc had the biggest positive influence on the S&P 500 after Reuters reported that the company had narrowed its CEO search to a handful of names. The shares rose $1.35, or 3.7 percent, to $37.99, and at one point touched its highest since July 2000.
However, other big technology shares were slipping. Apple Inc was down 0.5 percent at $519.84, Facebook Inc was down more than 2 percent at $48.98, and Google was down almost 0.5 percent at $1,017.00.
"The market is pretty much all green but those three big powerful tech names are slightly down," said Daniel Morgan, vice president at senior portfolio manager at Synovus Trust Company.
"It's interesting that these three companies have had such great momentum and fundamentals - I don't know if some of that money is shifting out in anticipation of Twitter."
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German industrial orders rose by more than expected, which is significant as the country is the economic engine of the euro zone.
One day before Twitter's eagerly awaited IPO, several other companies sold shares that debuted on Wednesday. Barracuda Networks Inc shares jumped 18 percent to $21.28, but several other IPOs barely moved in their first day of action.
"One of the barometers for the health of market conditions we look at is the ability for the market to absorb a large amount of IPOs," said Art Hogan, managing director at Lazard Capital Markets in New York.
According to Thomson Reuters data, if all 13 scheduled IPOs price this week, it will be the busiest week of the year in terms of the number of primary issues since September 2007.
Helping drive down the Nasdaq was Tesla Motors Inc , which saw shares slump more than 14 percent to $152.00 after the electric car maker forecast a weaker-than-expected fourth-quarter profit and its third-quarter Model S deliveries disappointed some analysts. Shares are up 350 percent for the year, and the stock has been a target of short-sellers who see it as overvalued.
The Dow Jones industrial average rose 110.01 points or 0.7 percent, to 15,728.23, the S&P 500 gained 5.92 points or 0.34 percent, to 1,768.89 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 11.19 points or 0.28 percent, to 3,928.674.
Ralph Lauren Corp shares advanced 5.4 percent to $180.35 after the designer clothing company raised the lower end of its full-year sales forecast on the expectation of strong gains during the holiday quarter and increased its dividend.
(Editing by Bernadette Baum, Nick Zieminski and James Dalgleish)