By Rex Crum, MarketWatch

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Tech stocks edged upward Thursday, with Facebook Inc. among the gainers ahead of an event in which the company is expected to announce a new foray into the mobile-phone market.

Facebook (FB) shares rose 10 cents, to $26.33, in advance of the company's event at its Palo Alto, Calif. headquarters. Facebook is expected to show off software that runs on Google Inc.'s (GOOG) Android phones that will show content from people's Facebook accounts on a phone's home screen when the device is turned on. The first such phones are expected to come from HTC Corp. .

Gains also came from Hewlett-Packard Co.(HPQ) Adobe Systems Inc. (ADBE), Intel Corp. (INTC) and Yahoo Inc. (YHOO).

The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index (RIXF) went into positive territory early in an effort to recoup some of Wednesday's double-digit loss, but then pulled back to remain near its break-even line of 3,218. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOX) and the Morgan Stanley High Tech 35 Index (MSH) eked out small gains.

Decliners included Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), which gave up 12 cents a share to trade at $28.44. Bank of America/Merrill Lynch analyst Kash Rangan cut his rating on Microsoft to neutral from buy, an cut his price target on the stock to $33 a share from $35. Rangan based his downgrade in large part on what he sees as a lack of momentum in Windows 8 operating system sales.

Apple Inc. (AAPL) was off by $3.76 a share, or almost 1%, at $428.25 even though Lazard Capital Markets analyst Edward Parker started coverage of the company with a buy rating and $540-a-share price target.

Parker had a different take on Apple, calling it a "storage company" by "delicately but deliberately incenting customers to purchase NAND flash memory at 80%-90% incremental margins."

Parker went on to say that "Apple is not only levered to data creation, but instrumental in driving data creation in ways its competitors aren't. We believe this framework helps to suggest why Apple's outsize profits are sustainable even as competitors continue to close the gap with respect to device capability and quality."

Netflix Inc. (NFLX) shares fell 1.4%, to $167.59, after giving up almost 4% on Wednesday. The Blu-ray and DVD sets of the company's original series, "House of Cards" are slated to go on sale June 11.

On Wednesday, Time Warner Inc. (TWX)launched Warner Archive Instant, its own rival video-streaming service to compete against Netflix.

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(END) Dow Jones Newswires

04-04-13 1146ET