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MIDDAY MARKETS: Techs hold ground

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Techs held their ground at midday Thursday, despite PSINet's plunge. The Nasdaq climbed 53.19 to 3,386.58 and the Dow Jones industrial average shed 9.10 to 10,890.37.

The Inter@ctive Week @Net Index rose 13 to 444.36.

PSINet (Nasdaq: PSIX), down 3.69 to 3.03 announced a new corporate structure and warned it may lower guidance for the fourth quarter. The company also posted a $1.4 billion loss for the third quarter. Xpedior Inc. (Nasdaq: XPDR), down 0.63 to 1.81, also said revenue has declined since last quarter, and it has received $30 million, part of which is from majority shareholder PSINet.

Worldcom (Nasdaq: WCOM) also took another hit as downgrades continued. Shares were down 1.13 to 17.81.

SciQuest Com Inc. (Nasdaq: SQST) missed reduced analyst estimates for the third quarter by a penny Thursday and announced a restructuring plan to help the company get back on track.

Amid worries about telecommunications capital spending, ADC Telecommunications (Nasdaq: ADCT) said Thursday it will meet or exceed estimates for its fourth quarter. ADC also sees more than $1 billion in sales for the quarter. Shares were up 2.56 to 24.75.

NextCard (Nasdaq: NXCD) ran up 2.25 to 10.31, or 28 percent after announcing earnings guidance for 2002 that doubles previous expectations. The company also will hit profitability earlier than expected.

Qualcomm Inc.(Nasdaq: QCOM), up 2.31 to 63.81, said Thursday it will postpone the spin-off of its Spinco semiconductor unit, citing unfavourable market conditions. The company also extended licensing of its CDMA technology.

Genuity Inc. (Nasdaq: GENU), down 0.03 to 6.16, topped analysts estimates for the third quarter, posting a smaller-than-expected loss and a 70 percent jump in revenues.

Dutch semiconductor equipment maker ASML (Nasdaq: ASML), up 0.75 to 28.06, also said it was comfortable with analysts' forecasts that it would sell 320-330 machines this year and 400-440 next year.

Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN) rose 1.06 to 38.44, AOL (NYSE: AOL) gained 1.34 to 53.34 and Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) was up 1.59 to 65.94.

Among other leading tech issues: Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO)rose 1.56 to 53.69, Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) gained 2.06 to 46.94, Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) was up 0.75 to 70.38 and Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL) shed 1.31 to 30.06.