The Night Watch: Shares Move Quietly Higher on Scant News

The positive tone of Wednesday's regular session carried into after-hours trading on Instinet, with 15 of the top 20 most active issues showing gains after the first hour. Stalwarts

Cisco

(CSCO) - Get Report

,

WorldCom

(WCOM)

and

Microsoft

(MSFT) - Get Report

were joined by

eFunds

(EFDS)

at the top of the active list.

There was little late-breaking news to drive prices, however, and trading was light at about 2.3 million shares on Instinet. Cisco was up 3 cents, to $18.27, while Microsoft was adding 7 cents, to $67.75 and WorldCom was up 4 cents, to $14.34. eFunds, which saw 250,000 shares change hands, was adding a penny, to $15.51.

Marketing software maker

Firepond

(FIRE)

had the biggest percentage drop, falling 6 cents, or 6.7%, to 84 cents on 26,000 shares traded.

On Island,

Yahoo!

(YHOO)

and

Amazon

(AMZN) - Get Report

were both actively traded, though neither moved from their closing prices of $17.51 and $11.10, respectively. Yahoo! added 82 cents in the regular session after saying traffic was up sharply on its shopping platform over the holidays, while Amazon rose $1.29 after a brokerage estimated it saw solid unit volume ahead of Christmas.

Sun Micro

also treaded water on Instinet after closing up 28 cents to $12.22 at the 4 p.m. bell. The company was upgraded to strong buy from buy by A.G. Edwards on Monday.