Yahoo, Net Stocks On The Mend

Yahoo recovered from a sharp sell-off Thursday morning after the company clarified CEO Tim Koogle’s comments about slowing Internet advertising spending. Technology and Internet shares also recovered from a two-day sell-off, but the Dow traded lower on an earnings warning from DuPont.

The ISDEX recouped 7 to 816, while the Nasdaq rose 64 to 4077. The S&P 500 recovered 8 to 1500, but the Dow declined 36 to 11,274. Volume was unchanged on the NYSE at 438 million shares, but declined to 735 million on the Nasdaq. Decliners led 13 to 12 on the NYSE, but advancers led 18 to 17 on the Nasdaq. For earnings reports, visit our earnings calendar and reported earnings. For after hours quotes and news, visit our new after hours trading site.

Yahoo slipped 1/2 to 111 9/16 after trading as low as 104 on Koogle’s comments to the Robertson Stephens Internet Conference in San Francisco. Koogle was initially reported by Dow Jones as saying that advertising is weak and he sees a decline in ad spending in the near term, but what he said was that the period of consolidation in online advertising has taken away some of the upside. Lehman Brothers, which began the stock’s recent slide with negative comments about the tough advertising environment, said it does not believe Yahoo’s near-term results are at risk.

MP3.com lost 1 7/16 to 6 7/16 a judge’s ruling that the company’s copyright infringement was willful. The company was ordered to pay $25,000 for each CD infringed. MP3 had argued that any fine greater than $500 per violation would bankrupt the company. Liquid Audio , off 15/16 to 7 9/16, and EMusic , down 1/4 to 2 3/16, pulled back after rallying on the news yesterday.

Broadcom rose 10 1/8 to 236 on a bullish presentation at a Salomon Smith Barney conference.

Internet consultants continued to deliver bad news to investors. Organic slipped 5/16 to 5 after warning that it will post a loss for the quarter instead of the 2-cent profit expected by analysts. The company expects revenues to rise 5% sequentially, better than the declines predicted last week by Viant and iXL . iXL slipped 3/8 to 6 9/16 after announcing the layoff of 350 employees.

Interactive Pictures gained 5/8 to 8 5/8 after agreeing to provide virtual tours on Yahoo Real Estate.

Peapod , up 1/16 to 2 1/16, announced that it was acquiring the Chicago and Washington, D.C. operations of Streamline.com , off 1/4 to 3/4, and exiting the Ohio and Texas markets.

Retek bolted 6 9/16 to 38 11/16 on news of an expanded alliance with IBM that could generate more than $1 billion in revenues by 2003.

General Magic gained 31/32 to 8 3/8 on a Dain Rauscher Wessels Speculative Buy rating and $20 price target.

Commerce One added 4 9/16 to 67 1/4 on news of an alliance with German software firm Intershop. The stock faces strong resistance at 70. i2 gained 4 1/4 to 164 1/4, and Ariba tacked on 5 9/16 to 161 7/8.

Amazon.com gave back 2 1/4 to 43 5/8, retracing to the neckline of an inverse head and shoulders the company broke out of on Tuesday.

Some technical comments on the market: The Dow rebounded this morning at the lower boundary of a bearish rising wedge (11,225). A break of that level would likely lead to a bigger sell-off in the blue chips. The Dow looks like it is topping out here after struggling with resistance in the 10,300-10,400 area, which capped the index’s

recovery in April. 11,100 is the first important support, but the more important support is 10,900, the upper boundary of the Dow’s bearish diamond pattern, which the index broke out of last month. The Nasdaq, S&P 500 and the ISDEX have already broken rising wedges to the downside, so if the Dow follows, the whole market could be headed lower.

We said yesterday that the Nasdaq could find support at 4000, around its 200- and 50-day moving averages (about 4000 and 3980, respectively), and the index did. The Nasdaq is recovering nicely today, but the move comes on lower volume than the last two days of selling. The Nasdaq’s broken wedge boundary is about 4150, so we would expect any rally to be capped there. The Nasdaq is struggling with 4100 resistance today. The Nasdaq and Nasdaq 100 have potential downside to their lows of a month ago, but we are hopeful that the sell-off can end at the downtrend lines broken two weeks ago. Those downtrend lines are now at about 3900 on the Nasdaq and 3800 on the Nasdaq 100. If the indexes can turn up there, it would be a positive sign. A break below those levels would likely lead to a wider sell-off. First support on the ISDEX is 790-800, but critical support is about 700, which is now the intersection of the index’s March downtrend and May uptrend lines. To the upside, the ISDEX’s lower broken rising wedge boundary is now around 830. The S&P 500 is back at the important 1500 level. The boundary of its broken rising wedge is now around 1515 and climbing. To the downside, next support is in the 1480-1490 range. The index has met with strong resistance around its all-time closing high of 1527.

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