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CNNfn market movers
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January 19, 1999: 11:39 a.m. ET
Delta, Merrill Lynch lead airlines, brokers, while Excite deal stirs Internets
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - In the barrage of profit reports hitting Wall Street Tuesday, airlines and finance firms made the biggest impact, while a blockbuster online marriage fed the Internet buzz.
Estimate-beating profits from Delta and an unsurprising loss from Northwest added fuel to interest in the airline sector, but early gains proved unsteady.
Delta (DAL) was down 1/4 at 55-3/4 after briefly climbing as high as 57. Northwest (NWAC) was unchanged at 26-1/2.
United holding company UAL (UAL) gained 1-1/2 to 63 on hopes Delta's profits might prove contagious, while Continental (CAI.B) gained 5/16 to 35-5/16 and Alaska Air (ALK) picked up 1-1/16 to 50-3/8.
Providing less positive earnings news, OfficeMax (OMX) shares fell 1/4 to 10-15/16 after alerting Wall Street that it will take a $77 million charge to liquidate obsolete computer inventory.
Database maker Oracle (ORCL) climbed 3-3/8 to 50-1/2 without benefit of earnings reports.
The company announced that it will strengthen its relationship with IBM (IBM), causing analysts to raise their price targets and reiterate their generally strong recommendations on the stock.
Bullish on brokers
Investors hoped that surprisingly hefty profits from J.P. Morgan (JPM), Bear Stearns (BSC), Merrill Lynch (MER) and Paine Webber (PWJ) meant that Wall Street firms have put the red ink of global volatility behind them.
At first, brokerage stocks rallied almost unanimously, but then news that a version of the Merrill Lynch release included an error spooked the market into taking some profits.
While Wall Street waited for the correct results, Merrill Lynch shares slipped 1-1/4 to 71-1/8, while J.P. Morgan slid 1-15/16 to 106-13/16.
Among the winners, Morgan Stanley (MWD) shares gave up most of the morning's gains to trade ahead 3/16 at 85-3/4. Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette (DLJ) climbed 5/8 to 45-5/8.
Deal fuels Internets
News that @Home is buying Internet portal Excite for $6.7 billion galvanized the online sector, driving shares of most major companies higher.
Excite (XCIT) rocketed higher, gaining 25-3/4 to 93-1/4. @Home (ATHM) shares drifted 1-5/8 lower to 100-3/81.
Excite's fellow Web portals were the most obvious beneficiaries of the deal's trickle-down rally. Lycos (LCOS) shares soared 13-1/8 to 101 on hopes that a copycat buyout could be in the cards, while leading portal Yahoo! (YHOO) climbed 9-5/16 to 326-5/16.
The portal least likely to get its own merger offer, Infoseek (SEEK), saw a more modest rise, up 2-1/2 at 73-7/8. Infoseek already is a partial subsidiary of Disney (DIS).
Among non-merger related firms, Marketwatch.com (MKTW), the newest Net stock, arrested its debut climb, falling 2-1/2 to 95.
The news hastened the deflation of Marketwatch's estranged parent, Data Broadcasting (DBCC), which fell 4 to 17-3/4.
Internet auctioneer Onsale (ONSL) was another of the morning's scattered Internet decliners, falling 6-7/8 to 51-9/16 after announcing it will sell personal computers at wholesale prices in an attempt to expand its audience. 
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