MIDDAY MARKETS: Techs still underwater

Techs recovered slightly from Monday's losses, but were still stuck in the red at midday Tuesday, as valuation concerns continued to keep the Nasdaq underwater. The tech-heavy index was down 18.25 to 3,345.96 and the Dow Jones industrial average fell 2.74 to 10,539.81.

The Inter@ctive Week @Net Index fell 5 to 430.62.

Global Crossing Ltd. (Nasdaq: GBLX) was down 1 29/64 to 26 9/16 after it announced its subsidiary filed a lawsuit against Tyco Submarine Systems Ltd., a subsidiary of Tyco International Ltd. (NYSE: TYC), down 1 7/8 to 42 1/8.

The day's IPO, Integrated Circuit Systems (Nasdaq: ICST) priced shares at $13 each, well below its range of $15 to $17 each, but had yet to debut.

Another networking company snapped up a another fiber optic equipment maker Tuesday. Nortel (NYSE: NT), down 3/8 to 51 1/4 said it will buy Photonic Technologies for up to $35.5 million in cash. Lucent (NYSE: LU) rose 1 3/8 to 55 7/8, and Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO) fell 1/4 to 55.

Quintus (Nasdaq: QNTS) , up 11/16 to 9 1/2, announced a reseller, marketing and technology alliance with Siebel Systems (Nasdaq: SEBL), up 1/4 to 113 1/2.

Among other leading tech issues, Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) rose 1 1/8 to 65 5/16, Dell (Nasdaq: DELL) rose 9/16 to 46 1/2, Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) fell 1 to 117 3/8, Sun Microsystems (Nasdaq: SUNW) fell 2 1/8 to 77 3/4 and Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL) was down 1 5/16 to 66 1/2.

Amazon.com Inc. (Nasdaq: AMZN) lost 2 to 49 7/8 Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) fell 2 3/16 to 124 1/16 and America Online Inc. (NYSE: AOL) rose 3/16 to 52 3/16.

Earnings expectations weren't doing much to drive shares; Crossroads Systems (Nasdaq: CRDS), down 3 3/8 to 56 1/2; Intuit (Nasdaq: INTU), down 1/8 to 28 3/16; 3dfx (Nasdaq: TDFX) up 1/4 to 8 11/16; VA Linux (Nasdaq: LNUX), down 1 7/16 to 42 13/16 and Novell Inc. (Nasdaq: NOVL), up 9/32 to 9 7/32 are all expected to report quarterly results Tuesday.