MIDDAY MARKETS: Chip stocks buck tech slump

Techs were mildly entertained by semiconductor earnings at midday Tuesday as the prospect of Intel and Motorola's earnings after the bell kept chips stocks active. The Nasdaq was down 10.19 to 2,905.76, and the Dow Jones industrial average shed 121.89 to 10,526.29.

The Inter@ctive Week @Net Index sank 3 to 352.45.

Intel Corp. (Nasdaq: INTC), the world's largest computer chip maker, grabbbed even more investor attention after it said it is teaming up with mobile phone giant Nokia Group (NYSE: NOK) to jointly develop set-top boxes that integrates the Internet for the European digital TV market. The chip giant, up 1 7/16 to 77 15/16, will also report earnings after Tuesday's bell.

Other chips playing in the earnings arena include Motorola (NYSE: MOT), the maker of PowerPC processors, which was up 13/16 to 97 7/16 ahead of the report expected after Tuesday's bell. Novellus Systems (Nasdaq: NVLS), up 3 3/32 to 75 9/16, was still rising after it topped analysts' third quarter estimates by more than 17 percent Monday. Applied Micro Circuits (Nasdaq: AMCC) was up 1 to 70 13/16 after it beat second quarter estimates and predicted a "strong" third quarter.

Non chips in the news include Global Crossing Ltd. (Nasdaq: GBLX), which was also topping the volume charts, up 2 1/8 to 37 3/16, or 6 percent after it bid $1.65 billion for Racal Telecom in order to build up its international telecommunications network. MCI WorldCom (Nasdaq: WCOM) was down 1 13/16 to 78 1/16.

A day after unveiling a new corporate identity, Click2learn.com Inc. (Nasdaq: CLKS) said it had received $10 million in private equity funding from company founder Paul Allen and a unit of Credit Suisse First Boston. Shares rose 2 13/16 to 12 1/4, or 30 percent.

E.piphany, Inc. (Nasdaq: EPNY) surged 25 percent, or up 13 to 65, after it said that Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN) has joined its growing list of Fortune 1000 and Dot-com customers by signing up to use its E.4 e-commerce software. Amazon shares were down 1 to 87 3/8. Other net notables weren't seeing green either; Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) fell 4 7/8 to 176 1/2 and America Online Inc. (NYSE: AOL) lost 2 5/16 to 118 3/4.

Adtran Inc. (Nasdaq: ADTN), up 3 7/16 to 40 1/8, was another beneficiary of earnings applause. It reported earnings of 36 cents a share for its third quarter Tuesday, beating First Call's estimate of 33 cents a share on record sales for HDSL and T1 products.

Online ad agency Modem Media Poppe Tyson (Nasdaq: MMPT) was up 9 11/16 to 49 7/16, or 24 percent after it announced it expects revenue for the third quarter of 1999 to exceed $21 million, up over 90 percent from the third quarter of 1998. DoubleClick (Nasdaq: DCLK) was down 1 1/4 to 131 1/4 and its rumored merger partner 24/7 Media (Nasdaq: TFSM) was down 1 ? to 47.

Exabyte Corp. (Nasdaq: EXBT) shares were stuck at 4 3/4, despite the fact that the company on Tuesday reported a smaller than expected loss without a restructuring charge.