MIDDAY MARKETS: AT&T and Fed fears weigh on techs

Techs fell back Tuesday morning after AT&T projected disappointing growth ahead. The Nasdaq Composite Index fell 34.97 to 3,923.11 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 38.62 to 10,773.16.

The Inter@ctive Week @Net Index fell 1 to 520.05.

Tuesday's decline could be blamed in part on AT&T (NYSE: T), which tumbled 6 1/16 to 42 15/16 after it said revenue and earnings growth will be down from previous guidance for fiscal 2000.

But interest rate worries were also to blame; as earnings reports wind down, investors are looking ahead of the May 16 Federal Open Market Committee meeting. A senior Fed official's concern over inflation may have also renewed fears of a larger rate hike. Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas President Robert McTeer said inflation appeared to be picking up, and described the recent 0.7 percent surge on March consumer prices, as "a terrible number."

Healtheon/WebMD (Nasdaq: HLTH), up 1 5/8 to 21 3/8 said Tuesday its first-quarter loss was 49 cents a share, a penny wider than First Call's expected loss of 48 cents a share.

Register.com (Nasdaq: RCOM) rose 2 to 59 1/16 after reporting a narrower than expected first quarter loss.

i3 Mobile (Nasdaq: IIIM) fell 3 1/4 to 15 1/4 after the company reported a first-quarter loss of 63 cents a share. A "strong buy" didn't cushion the fall.

Other earnings included Williams Communications Group (NYSE: WCG), up 1 5/8 to 39 1/8, Mortgage.com (Nasdaq: MDCM), down 3/32 to 1 15/16, OneMain.com (Nasdaq: ONEM), down 3/8 to 6 5/8, Storage Tek (NYSE: STK), down 3/8 to 13 9/16 and Ashford.com (Nasdaq: ASFD), down 11/16 to 3 13/16, which all reported quarterly losses, but slipped by estimates.

Broadvision (Nasdaq: BVSN) was soaring 6 5/8 to 49 11/16 after getting upgrades from Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse First Boston.

Other leading tech companies were all under pressure; Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) fell 2 3/8 to 71 1/16. Dell (Nasdaq: DELL) dropped 7/8 to 50 3/16, Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) was down 2 1/8 to 125, Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL) fell 1 1/2 to 78 3/16 and Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO) dropped 7/8 to 70 9/16.

Amazon.com Inc. (Nasdaq: AMZN) lost 2 9/16 to 57 3/8, Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) dropped 2 5/8 to 128 1/4 and America Online Inc. (NYSE: AOL) fell 11/16 to 58 9/16.