MIDDAY MARKETS: Techs post gains as bargain hunters emerge

Technology stocks extended gains at midday Friday, as investors continued to push shares higher. The Nasdaq rose 35.44 to 1,933.14 and the Dow Jones industrial average gained 86.02 to 9,475.50.

The Inter@ctive Week @Net Index rose 3 points to 185.47.

After pulling out of bear market territory late Thursday--the Dow had been down 20 percent from its high--blue chips continued to rally along with technology stocks Friday.

"People were encouraged by the big turnaround yesterday toward the end of the day and there is some more follow-through today, especially in technology," said Guy Truicko, a portfolio manager at Unity Management, which oversees more than $1 billion in assets.

There was also a dose of good news on the earnings front to encourage bargain hunters.

In upbeat earnings news, WebMD (Nasdaq: HLTH) was up 63 cents to $6.44, or 15 percent. The company topped estimates in the fourth quarter. SG Cowen upgraded the stock to "strong buy" from "buy."

Shares of Red Hat (Nasdaq: RHAT) surged $1.20 to $6.44 a day after the Linux company beat analysts' quarterly estimates and raised profit targets for fiscal 2002.

Micron Electronics (Nasdaq: MUEI), down 13 cents to $3.31, said it is exiting the PC business and merging with Web hosting company Interland in a $130 million stock deal that will transform the company into a hosting firm.

Data storage products company Adaptec (Nasdaq: ADPT), down 19 cents to $9.44, issued its second profit warning this month, citing an oversupply of products in the hands of its distributors.

Among other notable issues, Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN) was up 25 cents to $10.44, AOL Time-Warner (NYSE: AOL) gained $1.97 to $38.74 and Yahoo!(Nasdaq: YHOO) fell 25 cents to $14.63.

Cisco(Nasdaq: CSCO) fell 6 cents to $19.69, Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) rose 63 cents to $29.31, Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL) rose 63 cents to $16.12 and Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) was up $2 to $56.

ZDII staff and Reuters contributed to this roundup.