MARKET CLOSE: Hardware, Net stocks slide

Internet and hardware stocks were hammered Tuesday as the Nasdaq composite shed 125 points to close at 4,834.00. The Dow Jones industrial average plunged 90 points to end at 10,936.11.

"Part of what we're seeing today is short-term traders trying to jump on a rebound in financials,'' said Paul Cherney, market analyst at Standard & Poor's. "A lot of the mutual fund managers, especially those that are in the blue chips, are just biding their time, trying to pick a point to stuff the ledger with some of the better-name blue chips."

Yahoo! Inc. (YHOO) dropped 5 3/4 to 195. America Online Inc. (AOL) fell 2 7/16 to 72 while eBay Inc. (EBAY) and Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) lost 3 and 16 a share, respectively.

Lycos Inc. (LCOS) trimmed 1/4 to 68 15/16 and Excite@Home Corp. (ATHM) moved up 1 1/2 to 34 5/16.

Intel Corp. (INTC) tumbled 6 7/8 to 135 13/16. IBM Corp. (IBM) lost 4 5/8 to 122 1/4 and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) inched up 1 to 55 3/16.

Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) gained 1/4 to 104 5/16 on news no decisions would be issued Tuesday in the government's antitrust case. If there's no ruling today, it may mean the government and Microsoft are still interested in resolving the dispute.

Arrow Electronics (NYSE: ARW) rose 4 7/8 to 37 after announcing an upside surprise; the company said it expects to report earnings "close to double" the 30 cents a share reported a year ago.

Nortel Networks (NYSE: NT) fell 2 1/2 to 140 9/16 after it launched an e-business unit on Tuesday from its recent acquisitions of Clarify and Periphonics.

Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO) closed off 2 3/16 to 77 7/8.

Efficient (Nasdaq: EFNT) slid 13 9/16 to 158 after it said it would buy private Net security firm NetScreen Technologies for $905 million.

Terayon (Nasdaq: TERN) shot up 20 1/4 to 236 7/8 after it agreed to buy Ultracom and inked a deal for broadband deployment in China.

Among widely held PC stocks, Dell Computer Corp. (DELL) dropped 2 to 55 7/8; Gateway Inc. (GTW) lost 1 3/8 to 54 5/8; Apple Computer Inc. (AAPL) trimmed 7/16 to 139 1/8 and Compaq Computer Corp. (CPQ) closed off 15/16 to 28 3/8.