MIDDAY MARKETS: Techs jump

Technology issues posted solid gains at midday Wednesday in relatively quiet trading ahead of earnings from Yahoo! and AMD.

The Nasdaq rose 47.57 to 2,847.24, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 95.62 to 10,496.21. The Inter@ctive Week @Net Index surged 11 to 345.80.

Stocks shrugged off Tuesday's jitters. The markets were roiled Tuesday after the Federal Reserve announced it would keep interest steady, but adopt a bias toward tightening.

Among stocks in the news today, Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE: AMD) was up 1/8 to 18 3/4 ahead of its third quarter earnings report. AMD has been busy prepping its Athlon chips and analysts will be expecting to hear more on its conference call. Wall Street, however, isn't expecting much financially -- a loss of 97 cents a share is expected.

AMD rival Intel Corp. (Nasdaq: INTC) jumped 7/8 to 77 1/16 and Micron Technology (NYSE: MU) gave back 2 3/16 to 77 7/16.

Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq: YHOO) was in a holding pattern ahead of its earnings. First Call consensus is 9 cents a share (see preview).

Other Internet issues fared well. Amazon.com Inc. (Nasdaq: AMZN) rose 2 11/16 to 81 1/8, America Online Inc. (NYSE: AOL) rose 2 3/4 to 116 1/4, CMGI (Nasdaq: CMGI) gained 1 7/16 to 101 7/8 and Lycos (Nasdaq: LCOS) added 3 7/16 to 59 15/16. eBay Inc.(Nasdaq: EBAY) surged 7 3/8 to 148 9/16, or 5 percent.

Sterling Commerce (NYSE: SE) was among the day's big winners, jumping 12 percent on a good earnings outlook. Shares were up 2 11/16 to 23 11/16.

Oracle Corp. (Nasdaq: ORCL) slipped 1/2 to 45 3/4 and Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) rose 13/16 to 92 5/8.

AT&T Corp. (NYSE: FON) was up 7/16 to 45 7/16 after Leo J. Hindery Jr., CEO of its cable television business unit, said he is resigning to "pursue other interests." MCI WorldCom Inc. (Nasdaq: WCOM) , up 2 1/16 to 70, and Sprint Corp. (Nasdaq: FON), up 2 13/16 to 61 11/16, continued to be heavily traded following their merger. Qwest Communications (Nasdaq: QWST) was up 3/4 to 34.

Apple Computer Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) was up 9/16 to 68 1/2, IBM Corp. (NYSE: IBM) slipped 2 1/16 to 119 15/16 and Sun Microsystems Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) was flat at 97 13/16. Gateway Inc. (NYSE: GTW) rose 1 1/16 to 51 13/16 while Dell Computer Corp. (Nasdaq: DELL) gained 1/16 to 43 7/8. Compaq Computer Corp. (NYSE: CPQ) added 3/16 to 22 7/16.

Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO) climbed 1 1/8 to 72 3/4 and Lucent Technologies (NYSE: LU) slipped 5/8 to 64 5/16.