Techs were still surfing earnings momentum at midday Friday, as the Nasdaq continued the week's upward trend. The Nasdaq Composite Index rose 10.06 to 4,199.57 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 77.87 to 11,273.43.
The Inter@ctive Week @Net Index gained 3 to 583.62.
The market continued the week's pattern Friday, with the Dow falling, while the Nasdaq reached new highs. Aside from Sun Microsystems, which had a big run-up ahead of its report, most companies that reported earnings after Thursday's bell were driving the tech rally. Even Lucent, which came in at the low end of analysts' reduced estimates, was gaining at midday.
Neoforma.com Inc (Proposed ticker: NEOF) had yet to debut, though the business-to-business company was slated to price 7 million shares between $10 and $12 each for its IPO Friday.
Brooks Automation (Nasdaq: BRKS) said Friday it expects first quarter results of 23 to 25 cents a share, blasting past First Call's expectation of 6 cents a share. Shares rose 4 3/8 to 47 1/2, or 10 percent.
Other software companies moving on recent earnings news included Database software vendor Sybase (Nasdaq: SYBS) jumped 4 3/16 to 23 1/16, or 22 percent Friday after the company reported strong fourth quarter earnings.
After scaring off most investors with a radical business realignment in its previous quarter, Pervasive Software Inc. (Nasdaq: PVSW) fell 23 percent, or 3 1/2 to 12 after an earnings miss in its second quarter. The company also warned growth would be slow in the third quarter because of lower-than-expected database revenues and software orders.
Inktomi (Nasdaq: INKT) was up 9 7/8 to 109 7/8, or 10 percent after it reported smaller-than-expected loss for the quarter after Thursday's bell. Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) was down 1 7/16 to 104 9/16.
Communications chip maker PMC-Sierra (Nasdaq: PMCS) a href="http://www.zdii.com/industry_list.asp?mode=news&doc_id=ZE502786&pic=Y">jumped 11 percent, or 19 1/16 to 193 9/16 after the company reported better-than-expected fourth-quarter results, and announced a stock split. Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) rose 1 11/16 to 97 5/16.
Sun Microsystems was down 1 3/8 to 85 3/16 after it reported strong quarterly results Thursday.
Lucent Technologies (NYSE: LU) added 1/2 to 53 after it missed lowered earnings expectations Thursday and Cisco(Nasdaq: CSCO) gained 1 3/4 to 114 1/8.
Amazon.com Inc. (Nasdaq: AMZN) fell 1 1/16 to 63 11/16, Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) rose 1 15/16 to 353 7/8, America Online Inc. (NYSE: AOL) rose 1/16 to 64 1/8, and Excite@Home (Nasdaq: ATHM) lost 1 1/4 to 41 3/8.
Gateway (NYSE: GTW) was up 6 1/8 to 63 3/4 after last night's earnings report. Dell Computer Corp. (Nasdaq: DELL) rose 11/16 to 44 7/16, and Compaq Computer Corp. (NYSE: CPQ) rose 1 11/16 to 31 3/8.