MARKET CLOSE: Profit-taking takes techs down

Technology stocks retreated Wednesday as shareholders took profits.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index fell 72.66 to 3,644.91. The S&P 500 dropped 18.25 to 1,447.79. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slid 164.83 to 10,769.74.

Inter@ctive Week's @100 Index declined 70.45 to 5,013.66.

"It's a normal reaction to the way the market got taken up the way it did in the last couple of days," said James Raphalian, who heads over-the-counter stock trading at SG Cowen in New York. "We are able to find buyers, and you can look at the volume and see that also. I haven't seen any kind of panic scenarios."

A few companies avoided the sell-off. Analog Devices (NYSE: ADI) topped expectations with its second-quarter profits, predicted strong third-quarter results, and raised its revenue estimates for fiscal 2000. Shares of Analog rose 5 3/4 to 73 1/2.

Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) rose 1 5/16 to 123 3/16 after announcing a 2-for-1 stock split.

China.com (Nasdaq: CHINA), down 13/16 to 30 1/16, saw better margins and declining losses for its first quarter, and said it was on the path to profitability.

TD Waterhouse (NYSE: TWE) slid 1/8 to 18 9/16 despite reporting quarterly profits more than doubled, beating Wall Street expectations.

Veritas (Nasadaq: VRTS) gained 7 5/16 to 111 5/16 on the news it will develop and co-market products that work on operating machines made by IBM (NYSE: IBM), down 1 1/2 to 107 1/2.

LSI Logic (NYSE: LSI) fell 1 5/8 to 50 7/8 after announcing it will buy IntraServer Technology for about $70 million.

Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HWP) gave way to the day's trend, losing 8 7/16 to 130 1/16 despite reporting earnings that topped estimates. Recent HP spinoff Agilent Technologies (NYSE: A) also shed 10 1/2 to 78 after coming in on target with expectations after Tuesday's bell.

Lycos (Nasdaq: LCOS) was down 15 1/64 to 57 39/64 on news of its merger with Terra Networks (Nasdaq: TRRA), down 6 9/16 to 47. Analysts downgraded the stocks, at least partly on worries that Terra is paying too much.

Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) rose 2 1/8 to 137 3/4. America Online (NYSE: AOL) dropped 15/16 to 57 1/16. and Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN) rose 1 15/16 to 61.

Other leading techs also lost ground. Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) fell 1 13/16 to 67 11/16, Dell (Nasdaq: DELL) dropped 3/4 to 49 1/8, Cisco Systems (Nasdaq: CSCO) lost 2 9/16 to 58 and Sun Microsystems (Nasdaq: SUNW) was off 1 15/16 to 86 5/16.

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