Valentine's Day wasn't as sweet as investors might have liked, with game stocks trading mostly flat today. None moved more than a dollar a share, although Activision (ATVI) appears to be on the rebound from last week's roller coaster. Shares in the game company rose 73 cents apiece, up 3.53 percent to close at $21.42.

　　Shares in Midway Games (MWY) rose 77 cents to $10.28, up 8.1 percent, after announcing it had hired Zipper Interactive developer David Sears to join the creative team at Surreal Software. Atari (ATAR) also saw its shares increase 15 cents apiece, up 6 percent to $2.65. Electronic Arts (ERTS), GameStop Corp. (GME), THQ Inc. (THQI), Take-Two Interactive (TTWO), and Vivendi Universal (V) shares all rose, between 2 and 11 cents each.

　　Others dipped, including Jamdat (JMDT), which was down 38 cents a share to $19.98 at the closing bell. Shares in Electronics Boutique (ELBO) also fell, closing 28 cents lower at $36.85. Konami shares closed a penny lower at $22.08. On Japan's Nikkei 225 Stock Average, shares in Nintendo were down 110 yen ($1.04) to close at 11,890 yen ($113.12) Monday.

　　The larger markets also saw little movement. The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished 4.88 points lower at 10,791.13, while the Nasdaq Composite Index rose just 6.25 points to close at 2,082.91. The S&P 500 Index was up less than a point. Shares in Hewlett-Packard remained shaky today, dipping 2.5 percent after the company announced that ousted CEO Carly Fiorina's severance package will top $21 million. Other tech stocks on investors' agendas included Verizon, whose shares traded higher--then lower--after outbidding Qwest Communications to acquire MCI. Google's share price rose $5.59 today to $192.99 after CIBC World Markets raised its stock rating to "sector outperform."

　　In the foreign markets...

　　The Nikkei 225 was up 78.64 to 11632.20, a seven-month high. Tokyo Electron, a producer of chip-production equipment, saw a share increase of 3.3 percent. In Taiwan and Korea, markets also finished higher on the strength of electronics and semiconductor stocks. European stocks, like their American counterparts, were flat Monday.