MIDDAY MARKETS: Investors await Fed meeting

Technology stocks were rocky at midday as investors held out for Tuesday's Federal Reserve meeting. The Nasdaq fell 19.14 points to 1,871.77, and the Dow Jones industrial average inched up 3.11 points to 9,826.52.

The Inter@ctive Week @Net Index rose 1 point to 180.92.

Upbeat news came from Lucent Technologies (NYSE: LU), which was bid up $1.13, or 11 percent, to $11.12 after announcing a deal with Verizon Wireless, which will make it the largest supplier of Verizon Wireless' third-generation mobile network infrastructure.

Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) was the Nasdaq's most actively traded stock, shedding $2.28, or 8 percent, to $25.59. Bloomberg has reported that the company will postpone a planned $500 million expansion of a plant it acquired in 1998 from the former Digital Equipment.

Other stocks managed to gain despite bad news Monday. Fiber-optic giant Corning (NYSE: GLW), up $1.02 to $24.20, issued its third profit warning this year, ratcheting down its estimates for 2001 while maintaining first-quarter projections. The usual suspects--slower telecommunications spending and a slumping economy--were blamed.

Shares of Computer Sciences (NYSE: CSC) rose $1.30 to $34 after the company discussed its fourth-quarter warning with investors and analysts.

Struggling Internet service provider PSINet (Nasdaq: PSIX), down 53 cents to 19 cents, named a new president and chief operating officer. It also hired a financial advisor to explore restructuring its debt to bondholders and others.

Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN) was down 36 cents to $10.63, AOL Time Warner (NYSE: AOL) rose 5 cents to 39.4 and Yahoo (Nasdaq: YHOO) gained 44 cents to $14.

Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO) rose 34 cents to $20.28, Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL) rose 69 cents to $14.75 and Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) was down 13 cents to $54.44.

ZDII staff and Reuters contributed to this roundup.