MIDDAY MARKETS: Downgrades rattle techs

Cisco and Foundry led technology stocks even lower at midday Wednesday, as more downgrades pulled the Nasdaq down over 4 percent. The tech-heavy index shed 117.16 to 2,394.55 and the Dow Jones industrial average was off 128.55 to 10,455.82.

The Inter@ctive Week @Net Index dropped 20 to 274.28.

Shares of Cisco Systems (Nasdaq: CSCO) . fell 3.75 to 38, or 11 percent to a 52-week low Wednesday after Merrill Lynch downgraded the stock on concerns about slowing capital spending.

Yahoo (Nasdaq: YHOO) shares fell 0.56 to 27.44, as both CIBC Oppenheimer and U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray added to the parade of downgrades for the company. Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN) lost 0.63 to 17.63 and AOL (NYSE: AOL) fell 2.56 to 37.8.

Networking gear maker Foundry Networks' (Nasdaq: FDRY) shares were cut in half , down 16.63 to 14 after the company issued a fourth-quarter warnings and got slapped with some downgrades. Extreme Networks (Nasdaq: EXTR), down 14.46 to 34, was also downgraded.

The downgrades for leading information technology companies just keep coming. HP (NYSE: HWP), down 1.25 to 30.06, and IBM (NYSE: IBM), down 4.81 to 85.31, are the latest victims as Merrill Lynch downgraded both stocks to "neutral."

Jabil Circuit (NYSE: JBL), down 6.31 to 21.5 as analysts downgraded the company following its disappointing first quarter report and outlook for the second quarter.

Research In Motion Limited (RIM) (Nasdaq: RIMM), down 7.38 to 73.38, and Qualcomm (Nasdaq: QCOM), down 3.31 to 80.13, announced a Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) licensing agreement Wednesday, under which RIM may use Qualcomm's technology and patents to develop, manufacture and sell CDMA products.

Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) was down 0.41 to 33.0, Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL) fell 1.75 to 28.88 and Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) dropped 2 to 42.81.