Midday Markets: Healtheon soars, but techs stall

A few Net stocks raced ahead at midday on Thursday in a mixed day for techs. The Nasdaq dipped 2 to 2,574 and the @Net fell 3 to 324. The Dow Jones industrial average added 18 to 10,905.

Stocks continued to make muted gains. Wall Street is trading tentatively as it looks for clues in economic data that would prompt the Federal Reserve to act on its "bias" towards raising interest rates. The Standard & Poor's 500 index added 1 to 1,345 and the Russell 2000 added 3 to 449.

Healtheon Corp. (Nasdaq: HLTH) got hold of some growth hormone, shooting up 53 percent, up 42 11/16 to 122 15/16, after it closed its merger with Web MD. Premiere Technologies Inc. (Nasdaq: PTEK), which will hold 5.2 million Healtheon shares after the merger, rose 1 1/4 to 17 9/16.

Grabbing hold of the online healthcare bandwagon: Onhealth Network Co. (Nasdaq: ONHN), which has a business similar to Healtheon, rose 2 15/16 to 17 1/8. Adam.com Inc. (Nasdaq: ADAM), which sells anatomy chart software, added 11 1/2 to 35 1/4. Advanced Health Corp. (Nasdaq: AHTC) rose 1 3/8 to 5 5/8.

Amazon.com Inc. (Nasdaq: AMZN) slipped 4 7/16 to 135 1/8 after announcing plans to raise another $2 billion in the public capital markets. America Online Inc. (NYSE: AOL) was unchanged at 135 1/2 and Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) dropped 1 1/4 to 157.

Etec Software Inc. (Nasdaq: ETEC) fell 4 13/16 to 31 3/16 after missing third quarter estimates.

Global Crossing Ltd. (Nasdaq: GBLX) dipped 3 to 50 3/8 on concerns that its proposed union with US West Inc. (NYSE: USW). Global Crossing may have to issue more shares to cover the mergers of Frontier Corp. and US West.

Tech Data Corp. (Nasdaq: TECD) gained 4 1/4 to 38 11/16 after penning a three-year deal with GE Capital, which could generate as much as $2 billion in sales.

Vodaphone Group Plc. (NYSE: VOD) climbed 7 35/64 to 206 1/8 after declaring a two-for-one stock split after it completes its merger with AirTouch Communications.

Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO) dipped 9/16 to 116 and Lucent Technologies Inc. (NYSE: LU) lost 1/8 to 59 7/8.

Dell Computer Corp. (Nasdaq: DELL) dropped 5/16 to 39 1/2, International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM) declined 9/16 to 235 5/16 and Gateway Inc. (NYSE: GTW) slipped 1 13/16 to 63 1/4.

Intel Corp. (Nasdaq: INTC) declined 11/16 to 59 and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NYSE: AMD) fell 7/8 to 20 3/4.

Among software makers, Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) dipped 1/8 to 79 3/16 and Oracle Corp. (Nasdaq: ORCL) added 3/8 to 26 3/4.