MIDDAY MARKETS: Fed anticipation, broker list launch rally

Anticipation of no news from the Fed, and a list of uncommon value stocks lifted techs into a rally at midday Wednesday. The Nasdaq gained 77.42 to 3,936.38 and the Dow Jones industrial average climbed 42.07 to 10,546.53.

The Inter@ctive Week @Net Index rose 4 to 483.75.

With buyers anticipating today's 3pm ET announcement by the Federal Reserve to leave interest rates unchanged, there was little anxiety.

WorldCom (Nasdaq: WCOM), up 5 1/16 to 44 3/4, was going strong after news its deal to acquire Sprint (NYSE: FON), down 5 1/16 to 53 5/16, was still falling apart. Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HWP) was also making strong gains, up 8 1/8 to 124 3/4 after Lehman Brothers put it on a list of stocks that could outperform the market.

Lehman Brothers' other 10 "uncommon value stocks," were also being bought up: Agilent Technologies (NYSE: A) rose 3 7/8 to 79 5/16, BEA Systems (BEAS: Research, Estimates) gained 4 5/16 to 43 1/4, Gemstar International (Nasdaq: GMST) jumped 4 3/8 to 54 1/4, Juniper Networks (Nasdaq: JNPR) grew 9 1/2 to 135 15/16, Cendant (NYSE: CD) rose 1 1/8 to 14, Eli Lilly (NYSE: LLY) was up 1 1/2 to 86 1/4, Micron Technology (NYSE: MU) advanced 1 1/8 to 91 1/8, Nortel Networks (NYSE: NT) gained 2 1/4 to 69 1/2 and Tellabs (Nasdaq: TLAB) was up 5 1/16 to 67 3/4.

Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) said Wednesday it would acquire privately held eGroups, an email group communication service, in a stock swap valued at $428 million. Shares rose 5/8 to 126 9/16.

Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN) CEO Jeff Bezos reiterated the company's profit mantra Wednesday at a PC Expo keynote: Profits matter, but it's time to invest in the business. The stock was up 1/64 to 36 33/64. AOL (NYSE: AOL) lost 5/16 to 51 9/16.

The day's IPO fell in debut; Genuity (Nasdaq: GENU) lost 1 to 10 after it priced 173.9 million shares at $11 each, below range, for trading Wednesday.

IXYS Corporation (Nasdaq: SYXI) plunged 21 percent Wednesday after it said International Rectifier Corporation (NYSE: IRF), down 1 1/8 to 55 1/4, has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against it.

Qualcomm (Nasdaq: QCOM) was down 1 7/16 to 62 1/4, after tumbling ahead of Wednesday's bell after it announced that it may experience lower order levels for its chipsets in the fourth quarter.

Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) rose 1 3/8 to 132 3/4 and Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) was up 1/16 to 78 7/8.

Among other leading tech issues: Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO) gained 3/16 to 62 7/16, Sun Microsystems (Nasdaq: SUNW) was up I 3/4 to 89 3/16 11/16 and Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL) rose 1 to 83 1/4.