MARKET PREVIEW: Earnings smorgasbord

A steady diet of earnings should continue to keep techs racing out of last week's slump. Asian markets were up, Europe was mixed, and the Dow is set to open lower.

U.S.

As investors decide whether to continue the gains of the last two sessions, quarterly news from Lucent (NYSE: LU), Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL), Applied Micro Circuits (Nasdaq: AMCC), CNet (Nasdaq: CNET), Commerce One (Nasdaq: CMRC), Citrix Systems (Nasdaq: CTXS), Conextant (Nasdaq: CNXT), Earthlink (Nasdaq: ELNK), Extreme Networks (Nasdaq: EXTR), Veritas (Nasdaq: VRTS) and United Technologies (NYSE: UTX), just to name a few, should keep them busy.

And there's a host of news from after Tuesday's bell that has yet to be digested, including better-than-expected first quarter reports from America Online (NYSE: AOL) and Intel (Nasdaq: INTC). IBM (NYSE: IBM) also surpassed profit expectations, but revenue weakness plagued several of its units.

On the IPO front, OneSoft (Nasdaq: ONSF), had which bravely upped its range for pricing Tuesday, fell off the calendar. German DSL Internet service provider QS Communications (Nasdaq: QSCG) priced at $24.64 for trading Wednesday.

In economic news, a report on the U.S. trade deficit is expected to show the deficit rose to $28.5 billion in February, up from $28.0 billion in January.

Expect the following technology stocks to be among Wednesday's most actively traded issues: AOL, Inktomi, Intel, RealNetworks and Teradyne.

Technology stocks made enormous gains again Tuesday as investors continued to dive in after last week's brutal sell-off. The Nasdaq composite stormed up 254 points, or 7 percent, to 3,793.50 while the Dow rose 190 points to end at 10,773.00.

At the Bell

The Dow Jones industrial average may open about 54 points lower. The Standard & Poor's 500 index for June futures contracts was down 7.3 points to 1445 at 7:31 a.m. EST in 24-hour electronic trading.

The Inter@ctive Week @Net Index was up 37 to 505.33.

Asia

Trading in Asia was reviving major indexes. The Nikkei 225 rose 0.62 percent to 19,086, Singapore's Strait Times index gained 2.58 percent to 2,058 and Hong Kong's Hang Seng was up 0.97 percent to 15,427.

Europe

European markets were moving in different directions. London's FTSE 100 gained 1.15 percent to 6,143. The CAC 40 in Paris rose 1.10 percent to 6,153 and the Xetra DAX in Frankfurt was down 0.19 percent to 7,183 at 7:11 a.m. EST.

Reuters contributed to this report.