Wall Street - Technology shares flat

Shares in technology companies were flat to slightly lower midday in lacklustre rangebound trade as the heavyweight chip sector came under pressure following Applied Materials job cuts announcement despite a buoyant networking sector ahead of Cisco's results tomorrow, dealers said.

Nasdaq composite trading was lacklustre as investors kept to the sidelines as voting for the midterm elections kicked off and ahead of tomorrow's Federal Reserve meeting, they said.

At 12.31 pm in New York, the Nasdaq composite edged 9.98 points or 0.71% lower to 1,386.56, just above an intraday low of 1,385.79. The index failed the rise above the 1,400 mark, but hit a day high of 1,398.06.

The Nasdaq 100 index of leading non-financial issues dropped 10.05 points or 0.96% to 1,036.94, while the Philadelphia semiconductor (Sox) index traded 12.09 points or 3.71% lower to 313.93.

Volume was relatively low with 763.1 million shares traded so far today, with over 1,600 issues declining, just 1,300 rising, and 223 remaining unchanged.

The DJIA fared better, rising 40.37 points or 0.47% to 8,611.97, while the S&P 500 was up 1.03 points or 2.61% at 924.49.

With elections getting underway today and anticipation growing ahead of the Fed's meeting tomorrow, dealers said investors were behaving with some caution today.

The tech-rich Nasdaq Composite wobbled between positive and negative territory for most of the morning, as an upturn in the networking sector ahead of Cisco's earnings after market close tomorrow failed to offset a downturn in the chip sector after Applied Materials announced some 1,750 job cuts last night.

Chip equipment makers were the worst hit by the news, as it reignited fears that the ongoing slump in demand and cuts in capital expenditure budgets by chip makers will continue to eat into their profits.

Applied Materials was the biggest decliner, falling 72 cents or 4.38% to 15.73, followed by Novellus, $1.40 lower at 32.67. KLA Tencor slipped 95 cents to 36.95.

Data networking supplier Cisco outperformed the market, rising 12 cents or 0.97% to 12.43. First Call/Thomson Financial consensus is calling for first quarter earnings before special items for Cisco of 13 cents on sales of $4.809bn.

In turn, Juniper Networks rose 10 cents to 7.10.

Telecom network equipment providers extended recent gains, as Lucent edged 1 cent higher to 1.19 and Nortel climbed 2 cents to 1.35 while Corning was trading 8 cents higher at 2.23.

Agere dropped 6 cents to 1.17 after it received a warning from the NYSE that its share price has fallen below the stock exchange's minimum listing criteria.

The stock will face delisting if the stock does not rise above $1.0 over a period of 30 days in the next six months.