MIDDAY MARKETS: Techs shrug Yahoo! pull

Technology stocks shook off Yahoo!'s drag on the Internet media sector, and continued their gains. The Nasdaq rose 41.96 to 2,566.14 and the Dow Jones industrial average was off 24.81 to 10,579.46.

The Inter@ctive Week @Net Index rose 4 to 291.38.

Wall Street analysts came down hard on Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO), down 4.44 to 26.06 after the company lowered its 2001 outlook. Although analysts called Yahoo a strong bellwether, many said the portal should rework its business model.

Other Internet portals and advertisers also suffered; Analysts downgraded CNET (Nasdaq: CNET), publisher of this Web site, and NBCI (Nasdaq: NBCI) following the Yahoo results. Yahoo rivals also took a hit as Terra Lycos (Nasdaq: TRLY) slumped 0.44 to 12.19.

Wireless telephone handset maker Motorola Inc. (NYSE: MOT) rose 1.19 to 22.38, despite news it expects first-quarter sales and margins to drop in its personal communications and semiconductor units.

Rational (Nasdaq: RATL) bounded ahead 7.13, or 18 percent, to 46.25, despite getting a downgrade. Most analysts praised its quarterly reports and revised guidance

ATI Technologies (Nasdaq: ATYT), up 0.06 to 6.06, returned to profitability in its first quarter Thursday, but missed revenue estimates and lowered its outlook.

Cisco(Nasdaq: CSCO) fell 0.75 to 35.5, Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) was up 0.5 to 33.5, Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL) rose 1.13 to 33.88 and Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) was up 1.63 to 54.5.

Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN) fell 0.13 to 16.38, and America Online (NYSE: AOL) gained 1.69 to 46.58.

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