MIDDAY MARKETS: Techs hold ground
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.