MIDDAY MARKETS: Cisco leads rally

Anticipation of upcoming earnings and a spate of news hoisted techs at midday Monday. The Nasdaq rose 71.94 to 3859.30 and the Dow Jones industrial average climbed 74.35 to 10,842.10.

The Inter@ctive Week @Net Index rose 10 to 504.74.

Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO), up 1 7/16 to 67, and Dell (NYSE: DELL), up 1 13/16 to 43 3/16, two of the Nasdaq's most active gainers, are slated to report quarterly results Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively.

Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT), up 1 9/16 to 70 11/16, announced a share repurchase program aimed at providing shares for employee options and stock purchase plans.

Barnesandnoble.com (Nasdaq: BNBN) was up 1 9/32 to 5 1/32, or 34 percent, despite being downgraded by Merrill Lynch. The company confirmed a report it is teaming up with Microsoft Corp. to open the first major Internet store selling digital books.

Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN) rose 1/2 to 33. Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) was up 2 17/64 to 136 13/64, and AOL (NYSE: AOL) rose 13/16 to 52 13/16,

Computer Associates, Inc. (NYSE: CA), down 1/4 to 26 11/16, announced a realignment Monday that includes the spin-off its iCan-ASP Inc. and other businesses, and a new CEO.

Broadcom Corp. (Nasdaq: BRCM), up 1 1/64 to 239 61/64, will acquire privately-held Silicon Spice Inc., in a deal worth $1 billion.

Comcast Corp. (Nasdaq: CMCSK, CMCSA), down 9/16 to 33 1/4, and 1/4 to 32 13/16, said second quarter earnings were lower year-over-year, but operating cash flow, a widely watched indicator for cable companies, was up 32 percent.

Shares of AMD (NYSE: AMD) were up 1 15/16 to 64 11/16 , after slumping earlier to 60 3/4 following an analyst downgrade Monday morning.

Among other leading tech issues: Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) rose 1 5/16 to 63 7/8,, Sun Microsystems (Nasdaq: SUNW) was up 2 7/8 to 109 1/2 and Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL) rose 5/32 to 81 23/32.