MIDDAY MARKETS: Warnings weigh on Nasdaq

The Nasdaq shed another 5 percent Friday, erasing the week's earlier gains, as technology companies continued to issue profit warnings. The Nasdaq lost 126.26 to 2,440.57 the Dow Jones industrial average was off 244.70 to 10,667.7.

The Inter@ctive Week @Net Index was off 20 to 272.54.

Sapient (Nasdaq: SAPE) was off 2.44 to 12.63 after its fourth-quarter warning, but was still faring well compared to competitors. Analysts remained upbeat on the stock.

Next Level Communications (Nasdaq: NXTV) shares dropped 2.19 to 8.63 after the company warned for its fourth-quarter and received negative reactions from analysts.

The slowdown in information technology (IT) spending claimed another victim Friday, as push software provider BackWeb (Nasdaq: BWEB), down 0.97 to 3.06, said it will miss fourth quarter estimates.

Analyst downgrades contributed to Brooktrout's (Nasdaq: BRKT) 40 percent drop Friday, a day after the company warned for its fourth quarter. Shares were down 4.56 to 6.31.

Delano Technology (Nasdaq: DTEC) was cut in half, down 2.56 to 2.18 after a third quarter warning and a couple of downgrades.

Copper Mountain Networks Inc. (Nasdaq: CMTN), down 0.31 to 4.44, joined the club of downtrodden DSL stocks Friday, and announced fourth-quarter revenue will miss expectations.

Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO)dropped 3 to 38.87, Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) dropped 1.59 to 32.18, Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL) fell 1.88 to 30.69 and Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) rose 0.31 to 48.75.

Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN) fell 1.69 to 13.81, AOL (NYSE: AOL) lost 1.9 to 40.28 and Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) shed 0.38 to 29.19.