MIDDAY MARKETS: Techs shake HP pull

Techs eked out gains at midday Thursday despite disappointment over Hewlett-Packard's earnings news. The Nasdaq rose 58.43 to 39,19.63 and the Dow Jones industrial average climbed 44.69 to 11,053.08.

The Inter@ctive Week @Net Index rose 8 to 514.68.

After sleeping on Hewlett-Packard Co.'s (NYSE: HWP) third quarter earnings results Wednesday night, analysts who follow the company woke up on a few different sides of the bed. Shares fell 11 3/8 to 109 1/2.

Teen-oriented Web site iTurf (Nasdaq: TURF), down 3/4 to 2 1/4, went running back to parent dELiA*s (Nasdaq: DLIA), up 1/2 to 2 11/16; the companies said their merger will allow them to reach profitability sooner.

Optical networking firm Tellabs (Nasdaq: TLAB), up 1 13/16 to 63 7/16, has named former Ameritech CEO Richard C. Notebaert as its new CEO, effective September 18.

Ciena Corp. (Nasdaq: CIEN), up 11 9/16 to 174 13/16 topped expectations for the third fiscal quarter, and held out hope that they would repeat that feat in the next quarter.

ONI Systems Corp. (Nasdaq: ONIS) jumped 16 1/16 to 111 9/16, more than 16 percent, after it announced a multi-year contract win with Qwest Communications International Inc. (NYSE: Q), down 1/8 to 48 7/16.

Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) fell 5/16 to 133 11/16 and AOL (NYSE: AOL) dropped 3/4 to 54 3/4.

Among other leading tech issues: Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) rose 2 5/8 to 70 11/16, Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) was up 7/16 to 71 7/16, Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO) rose 5/8 to 63 11/16 and Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL) gained 1 to 82 3/16.