MIDDAY MARKETS: Jobs data sparks rally

Techs blasted out of the starting gate and were still going strong at midday Friday after May's jobs report reinforced signs the economy may finally be cooling. The Nasdaq gained 189.05 to 3,771.55 and the Dow Jones industrial average climbed 156.27 to 10,808.47.

The Inter@ctive Week @Net Index rose 33 to 481.02.

The U.S. jobs report for May portrayed a labor market weaker than market expectations, reinforcing recent data which suggests a cooling economy.

The Labor Department said unemployment rose to 4.1 percent in May from a 30-year low of 3.9 percent in April, while hourly wages rose only 0.1 percent, and there were only 231,000 new jobs created in May.

On the IPO front, Exult (Nasdaq: EXLT) rose 1/8 to 10 1/8 after it priced shares at $10 each, the bottom of its decreased range for trading Friday.

Chinadotcom (Nasdaq: CHINA) rose 5 1/16 to 28 7/8 26 percent Friday after analysts said the company was more than just a Chinese-language portal.

Online women's network iVillage (Nasdaq: IVIL), up 33/64 to 8 7/16, is in talks to sell its iBaby Inc. e-commerce unit to online baby-products retailer BabyGear.com.

Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) gained 1 5/8 to 66 3/16 as closure of the company's antitrust trial will be delayed.

The day's most actively traded stock was Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO), up 4 to 64 15/16. Other leading techs continued to gain: Dell (Nasdaq: DELL) was up 1 3/16 to 44 5/16, Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) gained 3 15/16 to 133 5/8, Sun Microsystems (Nasdaq: SUNW) rose 5 3/16 to 87 7/8 and Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL) was up 2 7/8 to 80 3/4.

Broadvision (Nasdaq: BVSN) gained a hefty 7 1/2 to 51 and JDS Uniphase (Nasdaq: JDSU) was up 10 to 108 1/4.

Amazon.com Inc. (Nasdaq: AMZN) rose 3 9/16 to ?53 3/4, Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) rose 3 9/16 to 129 1/4 fell 2 3/16 to 135 5/8 and America Online Inc. (NYSE: AOL) gained 2 5/8 to 55 3/4.