MIDDAY MARKETS: Techs gain as economic news sinks Dow

As investors chewed over the last of the week's earnings releases at midday Friday, Thursday's economic news began to sink in. The Nasdaq rose 44.56 to 3,818.59 and the Dow Jones industrial average fell 117.27 to 10,770.83.

The Inter@ctive Week @Net Index gained 7 to 508.84.

Though techs continued to gain Friday, interest-rate worries caught up with the Dow. Expectations had been for a quarter-point increase when The Federal Open Market Committee meets on May 16, but higher-than-expected gross domestic product and employment cost index numbers have incited fears a half-point rate hike may be possible.

Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) lost 1 1/16 to 68 3/4, as investors awaited the government's proposals on what should be done to the software giant. Expectations are for a breakup of the software maker into Office software and Windows operating systems companies.

ON Semiconductor (Nasdaq: ONNN) priced 30 million shares at $16 each and Software Technologies (Nasdaq: STCS) also priced, but both had yet to open their IPOs.

In earnings news, OpenTV (Nasdaq: OPTV), up 8 1/2 to 86 1/2 jumped 17 percent after the maker of interactive TV software beat estimates on a sharp rise in revenue.

Globix (Nasdaq: GBIX) jumped 2 15/16 to 21 11/16 after the company reported a hefty loss, but strong revenue growth for its second quarter.

Ericsson (Nasdaq: ERICY) was up 3/4 to 90 1/16 after its earnings report. U S West Inc.(NYSE: USW), up 1 5/16 to 72 1/8, which is set to be acquired by Qwest Communications International Inc. (NYSE:Q), up 5/8 to 43 5/8 also reported quarterly results.

Considering Corel's (Nasdaq: CORL), down 1/32 to 6 13/16, recent financial results and statements concerning its cash position, its deal to merge with Inprise/Borland (Nasdaq: INPR), down 1/16 to 5 1/4, may not be fair.

The game isn't over for downtrodden dot-coms, such as drkoop.com (Nasdaq: KOOP), down 1/4 to 2 23/32 and CDNow (Nasdaq: CDNW), up 1/32 to 4 1/4, according to a report from Webmergers.com.

Amazon.com Inc. (Nasdaq: AMZN) rose 1 1/16 to 53 15/16, Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) gained 3 1/4 to 127 9/16 and America Online Inc. (NYSE: AOL) hopped up 1/8 to 60 1/8.

Among other leading tech companies, Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO) gained 1/16 to 69 1/16, Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL) rose 1 55/64 to 79 11/64 and Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) climbed 2 3/8 to 127 11/16.