MIDDAY MARKETS: Rally gains steam

Earnings pumped the Nasdaq up again Tuesday, as investors snapped up companies reporting quarterly results, as well as big-name discounts. The Nasdaq Composite Index rose 178.05 to 3,717.21, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 141.47 to 10,723.98.

The Inter@ctive Week @Net Index gained 20 to 488.86.

Tellabs (Nasdaq: TLAB), up 4 13/16 to 48 1/8 said its first-quarter profit hit lowered estimates. The company warned earlier this month its earnings would be hurt by lower gross profit margins. Lucent (NYSE: LU) was up 3/4 to 54 7/8 and Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO), the most actively traded stock, gained 1 15/32 to 67 31/32.

The flight to tech stalwarts continued, with big names such as Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL), up 2 1/8 to 76 15/16, Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) up 3 1/16 to 78 15/16, and Dell (Nasdaq: DELL) up 1 1/8 to 49 7/8 making gains.

B2B shares also continued their dramatic turn-around; VerticalNet (Nasdaq: VERT) was up 5 1/16 to 38 11/16, PurchasePro (Nasdaq: PPRO) shares gained 4 1/4 to 37 1/4 and Commerce One (Nasdaq: CMRC) shares were up 7 1/16 to 77 7/16.

DLJdirect (NYSE: DIR), up 1 3/8 to 41, posted a 90 percent jump in first quarter earnings to a record $13.6 million, soaring past analysts estimates. Other online brokers, E*Trade (Nasdaq: EGRP) rose 1 9/16 to 19 3/4, and Charles Schwab (NYSE: SCH) lost 13/16 to 41 3/16. Knight/Trimark rose 4 3/16 to 34 1/4, after it announced the purchase of professional options execution business and floor brokerage operations of privately held Mesirow Financial Inc.

EMC (NYSE: EMC) beat Wall Street estimates with first quarter earnings of $332 million, or 30 cents a share, on sales of $1.82 billion. Shares fell 1 11/16 to 122 13/16.

Cypress Semiconductor (NYSE: CY) topped First Call estimates by a penny Tuesday with a first quarter operating profit of 41 cents per share. Shares gained 9/16 to 49 9/16. Vitesse Semiconductor (Nasdaq: VTSS) fell 11 5/16 to 61 3/4, as investors took back Monday's gains. Intel (Nasdaq: INTC), which will report after market close, was up 2 3/4 to 127 13/16.

Sprint (NYSE: FON), up 15/16 to 57 11/16, beat estimates in its first-quarter report, as profits rose 2.5 percent, offsetting costs in building its data network. Its PCS unit (NYSE: PCS) saw shares up 5 1/8 to 51 7/8.

Parametric (Nasdaq: PMTC), up 15/16 to 9, reported it broke even in its second-quarter Tuesday, right on target with First Call's revised prediction.

Among companies reporting after Tuesday's bell, America Online Inc. (NYSE: AOL) lost 1 1/8 to 57 5/8, IBM (NYSE: IBM) rose 2 1/16 to 113 15/16, Inktomi (Nasdaq: INKT) jumped 14 1/16 to 106 1/16 and Qualcomm (Nasdaq: QCOM) lost 3 15/16 to 112 15/16.

Amazon.com Inc. (Nasdaq: AMZN) rose 2 5/8 to 49 11/16, Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) gained 4 5/8 to 119.