Stocks Mixed at Midday

Stocks began the week mixed, as traders digested Friday's strong gains fueled by a soft jobs report.

As of noon, the Dow was down 18 and the S&P 500 down 9, while the Nasdaq gained 3 points. Volume was light, with 388 million shares changing hands on the Big Board and 741 million on the Nasdaq. Declining issues led advancing ones 15 to 11 on the NYSE, while advancers led 19 to 17 on the Nasdaq. The ISDEX was virtually unchanged at 761.50. The economic calendar for the week is light, with the only major report Friday's Producer Price Index, expected to show a 0.3% increase in May after a similar decline in April.

Ariba broke through its 50 and 200 day moving averages, up 7 7/8 to 78 3/8, after announcing a pact with VeriSign and American Express to deliver the first integrated card payment processing utility for online business-to-business transactions. Commerce One gained 3 15/16 to 54 1/4.

Amazon.com declined 3 3/8 to 54 1/2 after an article in Barron's said the company could be hurt if forced to change its accounting practices.

Performance software stocks were strong, led by Red Hat , up 24% to $23.80. Liberate Technologies gained 14% to $30.50 and Versata , 14% to $31 1/8.

MarketWatch and NBC Internet led content stocks higher, up 9% and 11%, respectively. Yahoo continued its recent run, up 3 7/16 to 137 15/16.

Internet Capital Group led financial shares higher, up 4 9/16 to 41 1/8.