THE DAY AHEAD: Market Preview

Techs may stumble into the beginning of a new trading week, as profit taking is carried over from Friday. Asia and Europe were mixed. The Dow looks to creep higher at the bell.

U.S.

The broader markets look to tread into positive territory, now that the Federal Reserve has made its position on interest rates known. Tech stocks, however, may not shine as brightly. A Barron's interview pointed at several big players, such as Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO) as being overvalued. That could lead to some profit-taking across the board.

The main issue with the market: a lack of momentum. The anxiety about the Fed adjusting rates higher has darkened the mood towards stocks. Couple this with the lack of upside surprises from Sun Microsystems Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) and Dell Computer Corp. (Nasdaq: DELL) and it doesn't look too favorable for tech stocks in the near-term. In short, pick your stocks carefully, and you may want to consider taking some money off the table. Techs are in the doldrums and it's not likely to improve until the summer's end.

It's slim pickings for Monday's stocks to watch: AT&T was mentioned favorably in Barron's, H-P added $2 billion to its stock buy back plan and PeopleSoft may have a new president.

On Friday, techs closed out the week on a sour note. The Nasdaq composite fell 22 points to 2,520.64 while the Dow closed off 37 points to 10,829.28.

The Inter@ctive Week @Net Index dropped 4 to 312 on Friday.

At the Bell

The Dow Jones industrial average is set to open a tad higher. The Standard & Poor's 500 index for June futures contracts rose 4.4 points to 1,339.2 at 7:36 a.m. EST in 24-hour electronic trading, are indicating a 35-point gain in the global bellwether.

Asia

Asia was mixed on Monday following a weak close in the U.S. markets on Friday. The Nikkei 225 in Tokyo added 0.6 percent to 16,390, the Seoul composite in South Korea dropped 2.1 percent to 695, Singapore's Strait Times index sank 1.05 percent to 1,932 and Hong Kong's Hang Seng advanced 1.34 percent to 12,436.

Europe

European markets were mostly closed on Monday. London's FTSE 100 rose 0.75 percent to 6,400 at 7:46 a.m. EST. The CAC 40 in Paris, the Xetra DAX in Frankfurt, as well as the Swiss, Amsterdam and Stockholm exchanges were closed.