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MARKET PREVIEW: Techs digest earnings, eye IPOs

2 min read

The IPO of a much-postponed e-commerce company should add to techs' full plate of good news Thursday, as they continue to revel in the success of Yahoo!'s earnings. Asian and European markets moved ahead, and the Dow is set to open slightly higher.

U.S.

Yahoo! kicked off earnings season for Internet companies with impressive third quarter results Wednesday and even beat Wall Street's "whisper number." Advanced Micro Devices also reported a narrower-than-expected loss and announced plans to sell its communications chip unit to focus on microprocessors and flash memory. Both stocks were rising before the bell.

The debut of Calico Commerce Inc. (Nasdaq: CLIC) has finally arrived, with 4 million shares priced at $14 apiece, after a long series of delays. PlanetRx.com (Nasdaq: PLRX) also makes its IPO Thursday, just after the announcement of competition from an alliance from CVS and Merck & Co.'s pharmacy benefits unit.

Economic news is settling down after the Fed's meeting, while investors look ahead to Friday's data on September data.

Stocks which may be active Thursday include Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE: AMD) SBC Communications (NYSE: SBC), BMC Software (Nasdaq: BMCS), Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO), and Barnesandnoble.com (Nasdaq: BNBN).

Technology stocks rose ahead of some key third quarter earnings reports Wednesday. The tech-infused Nasdaq Composite Index rose 57.53 to 2,857.20, the S&P 500 gained 24.03 to 1,325.38, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 187.75 to 10,588.34. Inter@ctive Week's @100 Index increased 82.78 to 5,120.09.

At the Bell

The Dow Jones industrial average may open about 28 points higher. The Standard & Poor's 500 index for June futures contracts was up 3.6 points to 1338 at 7:40 a.m. EST in 24-hour electronic trading.

The Inter@ctive Week @Net Index rose 12 to 346.97.

Asia

Trading in Asia was on an upswing. The Nikkei 225 rose 1.34 percent to 18,137, Singapore's Strait Times index gained 0.92 percent to 2,120 and Hong Kong's Hang Seng was up 0.73 percent to 13,113.

Europe

European markets were also moving up. London's FTSE 100 rose 1.58 percent to 6,194. The CAC 40 in Paris gained 0.25 percent to 4,703 and the Xetra DAX in Frankfurt was up 0.56 percent to 5,383 at 7:00 a.m. EST.

Reuters contributed to this report.