Broadcom shares gain after hours on sales view

LOS ANGELES (MarketWatch) � Shares of Broadcom Corp. edged higher Wednesday evening as the chip maker said its quarterly sales outlook has improved.

Broadcom shares BRCM �gained 0.5% to $32.50, with the company saying revenue in its mobile and wireless business has been slightly better than it had anticipated. That performance prompted Broadcom to now expect fourth-quarter sales of $2 billion to $2.1 billion, compared with its previous forecast for $1.95 billion to $2.1 billion. More on Broadcom's Q4 sales view.

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Shares of Broadcom closed the regular trading session down 0.3%, ahead of the updated sales guidance, but are up 10% this year.

In the day trading session, U.S. stocks mostly rose, as Wall Street took in what appeared to be a softening of stances in Washington talks to avert the fiscal cliff of pending tax increases and spending cuts. Read more about Wednesday's action in U.S. stocks.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA �rose 83 points, or 0.6%, to 13,034.49 and the S&P 500 index SPX ended 0.2% higher at 1,409.28.

But the Nasdaq Composite COMP �fell 0.8% to 2,973.70, with Apple Inc. AAPL �shares losing more than 6%. See: Five downside catalysts for Apple.