The technology sector is often talked about as if it were a unified front, an easy-to-define monolith.

U.S. stock index futures were higher, pointing to a firmer start on Wall Street on Monday, with both the Dow Jones futures and the S&P 500 futures up 0.3 percent by 3.56 a.m. ET, and the Nasdaq futures up 0.2 percent.

Filed under: Before the bell , International markets , Earnings reports , Deals , Market matters , Boston Scientific , CIT Group , Texas Instruments , Economic data , Oil U.S. stock futures advanced Monday after it was reported Sunday CIT Group may get a private sector emergency financing.

Next Inning Technology Research , an online investment newsletter focused on semiconductor and technology stocks, announced it has updated outlooks for Texas Instruments , Advanced Micro Devices , Linear Technology , and QLogic .

Devices help customers design energy-efficient HD set-top boxes, Blu-ray DVD players and portable media players DALLAS.

Health insurer UnitedHealth Group Inc. said Tuesday that its second-quarter profit more than doubled as the prior-year period was weighed down by large lawsuit settlements and thinner margins in its health care services business.

Filed under: Earnings reports , Intel , Advanced Micro Dev , QUALCOMM Inc , Texas Instruments , Technology Texas Instruments , whose peers include Qualcomm , Advanced Micro Devices , and Intel , reported results for the second quarter after the bell on Monday.

Continued weak demand for personal computers put a dent in the second-quarter revenue of Advanced Micro Devices Inc., which reported Tuesday that revenue fell 13 percent from a year earlier to $1.2 billion.

U.S. stocks jumped on Monday, driving the S&P 500 to an eight-month closing high, after CIT Group Inc was thrown a lifeline to avoid bankruptcy, and investors bet corporate America would log another strong set of earnings this week.

Many investors have been preoccupied in recent days with earnings announcements from big names like Texas Instruments and Caterpillar .