MIDDAY MARKET: Dell drags on techs

Dell put pressure on techs, which fell again at midday Thursday after the PC-maker's warning. The Nasdaq tumbled 37.35 to 3,485.75 and the Dow Jones industrial average shed 27.38 to 10,757.10.

The Inter@ctive Week @Net Index fell 7 to 483.21.

Dell (Nasdaq: DELL) lost 2.19 to 26, or 8 percent, Thursday after announcing its third downward revision on sales this year. Analysts lowered their ratings and expectations for the PC maker into 2002. Compaq (NYSE: CPQ) was also down 8 percent, or 2.22 to 26.62. Gateway (NYSE: GTW) was down 2.95 to 48.95.

Other companies with dire outlooks included Harmonic Inc. (Nasdaq: HLIT) which was down 35 percent, or 8 to 14.81, after announcing that its third quarter revenue would be below expectations, and it would report a loss rather than a profit.

WebHouse Club, the name-your-price grocery and gasoline backed by Priceline.com (Nasdaq: PCLN), down 2.66 to 6.72, will go out of business in 90 days, the company said Thursday.

Blowing the lid off analyst estimates and getting bullish notes from Wall Street were apparently not enough to boost Micron Technology's (NYSE: MU), down 4.13 to 42.81.

Lucent Technologies (NYSE: LU), up 0.69 to 33.62, has signed a $1 billion deal to supply SBC Communications (NYSE: SBC), up 1.13 to 52.88, with data, voice and access infrastructure technology.

Advanced Switching Communications (Nasdaq: ASCX) priced 6.3 million shares at $15, the top of its $13 to $15 range for trading Thursday.

Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN) fell 2.5 to 33.5, AOL (NYSE: AOL) gained 2.84 to 61.49 and Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) inched up 0.09 to 88.03.

Among other leading tech issues: Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO) dropped 1.31 to 57.25, Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) fell 0.06 to 41.94, Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) was up 0.75 to 56.19 and Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL) shed 0.69 to 67.44.