MIDDAY MARKETS: Mergers ripple techs

A couple of mergers were making waves on an otherwise lackluster day for techs at midday Monday. The Nasdaq tumbled 6.75 to 3,666.07 and the Dow Jones industrial average rose 61.42 to 10,712.34.

The Inter@ctive Week @Net Index rose 1 to 503.54.

Dutch semiconductor equipment maker ASM Lithography Holding N.V. (Nasdaq: ASML), down 1.69 to 30.63, will acquire rival Silicon Valley Group Inc. (Nasdaq: SVGI), up 9.56 to 35.88, in a stock swap worth $1.6 billion.

Infineon Technologies (NYSE: IFX), up 1.81 to 49.31, said Monday it will buy Ardent Technologies, a supplier of integrated circuits for local area network switching systems, for $42 million. The deal is part of its goal to enter the enterprise networking sector.

Foundry Networks Inc. (Nasdaq: FDRY), provider of high-performance, end-to-end switching and routing systems, said Monday that Global TeleSystems (NYSE: GTS) is using its equipment for its Web hosting centers throughout Europe.

Microchip Technology Inc. (Nasdaq: MCHP), up 2.75 to 35.81, gave investors some encouraging news Monday; it expects to report earnings and sales above expectations for the second fiscal quarter.

Semiconductor equipment firm MKS Instruments Inc. (Nasdaq: MKSI), down 3.44 to 23.94, has agreed to acquire Applied Science and Technology, Inc. (Nasdaq: ASTX), up 3.13 to 17.88, in a deal worth around $300 million.

Project Software & Development Inc., or PSDI, (Nasdaq: PSDI), down 4.53 to 11, said Monday it expects earnings and revenue to miss estimates for the quarter ended September 30, due to deals that will close later than expected and weakness in the Asian markets.

HNC Software Inc. (Nasdaq: HNCS) got a downgrade and sold-off its Retek business.; BB&T Capital Markets lowered it from "strong buy" to "long term buy."

Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN) fell 1.38 to 37.06, AOL (NYSE: AOL) gained 0.62 to 54.52 and Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) fell 3.94 to 87.06.

Among other leading tech issues: Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO) rose 3.19 to 58.44, Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) fell 0.69 to 40.88, Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) was down 0.5 to 59.81 and Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL) rose 2.88 to 81.63.