The Nasdaq Stock Market Inc. has booted a handful of underperforming technology stocks from its Nasdaq-100 Index, replacing them with retail and logistics stocks among others, in a move that reflects the sagging state of the industry.

The reshuffling, announced Friday, was part of the market's annual readjustment of its Nasdaq-100 Index, which is composed of the 100 largest nonfinancial stocks on the Nasdaq market.

Now gone from the index are chip makers Atmel Corp., Applied Micro Circuits Corp. and Vitesse Semiconductor Corp. Rational Software Corp. was also removed, as well as supply chain management software maker i2 Technologies Inc. and Charter Communications Inc.

All in all, 15 companies were removed from the list, including scandal tainted biopharmaceutical company ImClone Systems Inc.

In their place, Nasdaq chose retailers Ross Stores Inc., Whole Foods Market Inc., and PETsMART Inc., as well as logistics providers C.H. Robinson Worldwide Inc. and Expeditors International of Washington Inc.

In a statement released Friday, John L. Jacobs, chief executive officer of Nasdaq Financial Products Services, praised the Nasdaq-100 Index as "one of the world's most closely watched barometers of financial activity."

The market's move to reduce the number of tech firms in the index, could be read as a signal that industry health is still in poor shape.