Off-Hours Trading: Market Looks to Move Higher Despite Internet Hacking

All eyes will be -- well -- here, on the Internet, to see if the two-day wave of Web hacking will continue today or float off into the ethernet, or intraspace or wherever it is that hackers call home.

(One thing's for sure, wherever they live you can bet there's some pretty fierce debate about whether Picard, Kirk or Janeway was the best captain.)

On Monday, Yahoo!'s (YHOO Quote) Web site was down for about three hours. Then, yesterday the wave of hacking spread to eBay (EBAY Quote), Amazon.com (AMZN Quote), CNN.com and Buy.com (BUYX Quote).

For more on what happened yesterday take a gander at the fine yarn spun by TheStreet.com/NYTimes.com joint newsroom.

Despite this hacking, futures were pointing the market higher this morning as the S&P 500 March contract was quoted up 6.8 to 1453, about 5 points above fair value. The thinly traded Nasdaq 100 March contract was up 25 to 4120.

It will be worth noting whether Internet stock indexes, like our own TSC Internet Sector index, is adversely affected today by this week's problems on the Web. Yesterday, the DOT surged 24 points, or 2.2%, to 1162.

In earnings, market movers and shakers Allstate (ALL Quote), Goodyear (GT Quote) and Pepsico (PEP Quote) are all slated to report their quarterly results today.

Today could also be the day that warm and cuddly Steve Forbes joins Orrin Hatch and Gary Bauer to fill out the bottom row of Celebrity Hollywood Squares. Forbes, who spent a boatload of cash in Delaware, got smacked by the winner, Texas Gov. George W. Bush and the Arizona Sen. John McCain. McCain, it should be added, didn't even campaign in the state.

You'd be tempted to feel sorry for Forbes, but the guy's worth about 8 zillion dollars, so he'll get over it.

Last Night's After-Hours Trading

By Eric Gillin
Editorial Assistant

What's that old saying? Cisco (CSCO Quote) -- fat in the can!

The networking giant was frying up some huge gains in after-hours trading after releasing its second-quarter results. Cisco announced pro forma earnings of 25 cents a share, beating the 34-analyst First Call/Thomson Financial estimate of 24 cents and last year's 17-cent pro forma result.

At last check, Cisco was up 6 9/16 to 132 3/8 on 2.1 million shares, the most actively traded issue on Island ECN. Tonight's activity was the highest postclose Island volume in the new year.

Along with the earnings data, Cisco announced a 2-for-1 stock split, its first of the new decade and ninth since 1990. The stock will split March 22.

The company also released additional financial results for its second quarter, with sales up coming in at $4.35 billion vs. $2.85 billion the previous year. That's a 52.6% gain. Profits, excluding all charges, were also up from the previous year. This quarter's profits were $906 million vs. last year's $609 million, for a gain of 48.8%.

Ahead of the release, during today's day session, Cisco rose 5/8, or 0.5%, to 125 13/16.

As of today's close, the company's market cap was $430.4 billion, big enough to make it the third-highest-valued American company, right behind General Electric (GE Quote), market cap $449 billion, and Microsoft (MSFT Quote), market cap $568.9 billion.

And with mighty-mites continuing to clog Island's most-actives list, only one other large-cap tech issue was affected by Cisco's release. Amazon.com (AMZN Quote) capitalized on today's 11.8% gain by doing nothing after-hours. It was unchanged at 83 3/16 on 60,000 shares.

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Bingo!

Nope. Not this time.

American Bingo & Gaming (BNGO Quote) dropped 7/32 to 1 7/32 on 310,000 shares in after-hours, giving up some of its day session gain of 15/32, or 65.2%, to 1 7/16.

Today's gain comes on news that the company's board expanded its stock repurchase plan, effectively doubling it. So far, the company has repurchased 729,000 shares and can now repurchase up to 1.3 million more shares. If the plan is carried out to its utmost, then American Bingo will own 2 million of the 10.2 million common shares issued.

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Worldwide Entertainment & Sports (WWES Quote) gained 3/16 to 2 3/8 on 200,000 shares after announcing plans to acquire the House of Boxing Web site for $1 million in stock and cash. The company already has one Web property, Sportcut.com, which launched in November 1999.

Its Web ventures are something of an aside for the company, used to assist and support its core business, which is managing and marketing athletes, artists and entertainers. The Green Bay Packers' wide receiver Antonio Freeman and the Miami Dolphins' O.J. McDuffie, also a wideout, are both clients.

Tonight's gain capped a day session move of 17/32, or 30.9%, to 2 1/4.

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Scrub-a-dub dub, Iteq (ITEQ Quote) got a good rub.

During the day, it rose 1/2, or 44%, to 1 11/16 after announcing that a unit, Ceilcote Luftreinhaltung Air-Cure, was awarded two contracts valued in excess of $10 million to produce scrubber systems. The scrubbers were purchased by a European semiconductor manufacturer. Tonight, the company gave some of that back, falling 1/8 to 1 5/8 on 150,000 shares on Island.

And no, we can't pronounce "Ceilcote Luftreinhaltung" either.

10 most active stocks on Island ECN (8 p.m. EST)
Company	Price	Change	Session Volume
Cisco (CSCO Quote)	132 3/8	+6 9/16	2,152,590
Crown Resources (CRSS Quote)	1 9/32	+5/32	1,017,340
North American Technologies Group (NATK Quote)	4 3/8	+1 5/8	455,408
Med-Emerg International (MDER Quote)	3 5/32	+19/32	412,810
NewStar Media (NWST Quote)	1 1/32	+5/32	392,856
American Bingo & Gaming (BNGO Quote)	1 7/32	-7/32	310,578
Pacer Technology (PTCH Quote)	1 1/32	0	266,016
Paging Network (PAGE Quote)	3 9/16	-1/32	238,030
Worldwide Entertainment & Sports (WWES Quote)	2 3/8	+3/16	208,332
American International Petroleum (AIPN Quote)	151/256	-1/128	179,536

Island ECN, owned by Datek Online, offers trading, mainly in Nasdaq-listed stocks, from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. EST..

10 most active stocks on MarketXT (8 p.m. EST)
Company	Price	Change	Session Volume
Cisco (CSCO Quote)	132 3/4	+7 15/16	56,132
Lucent (LU Quote)	54 1/2	+5/16	19,300
MCI WorldCom (WCOM Quote)	51 1/4	+5/16	7400
SBC Communications (SBC Quote)	42 1/16	+1/16	6000
Microsoft (MSFT Quote)	110 11/16	+3/4	5400
Buy.com (BUYX Quote)	27 7/8	+2 3/4	3750
Sun Microsystems (SUNW Quote)	88 1/8	+1 1/8	3650
Dell (DELL Quote)	37	-1/16	3050
Qualcomm (QCOM Quote)	139 1/4	+1 9/16	2800
Herman Miller (MLHR Quote)	22 5/16	+5/16	2000

MarketXT, formerly Eclipse Trading, offers after-hours trading to retail clients of Morgan Stanley Dean Witter's (MWD Quote) Morgan Stanley Dean Witter Online, Mellon Bank's (MEL Quote) Dreyfus Brokerage Services and clients of Salomon Smith Barney. Clients can trade 200 of the most actively traded New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq Stock Market issues, 4:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. EST Monday through Thursday.

Confused? TheStreet.com explains how the rules change when the sun goes down in Investing Basics: Night Owl, a section devoted to after-hours trading.