Dow Advances 14 to 10,699, Nasdaq up 48 to 4,029
VARNEY: In tonight's headlines, Wall Street gets a charge from tech profits as some chipmakers help the markets break a two-day losing streak. And Compaq comes out with earnings after the bell. We'll check out whether the PC maker has left its troubled days behind, and we'll talk to Compaq's chief, Michael Capellas. And a major defection for a Web icon. We'll ask Joseph Galli why he bolted as Amazon's number two man and took the reins of another online business.</s>BAY: But first, more on tonight's top story: an Air France Concorde jet crashes outside Paris, leaving 113 people dead. The plane went down shortly after takeoff en route from Paris to New York. The disaster claimed the lives of everyone on board, 100 passengers and a nine-person flight crew, along with four people on the ground as the plane smashed into a hotel. The passengers, part of a luxury tour group, were mostly from Germany, but also included one American, two Danes, and an Austrian. The cockpit voice and flight data recorders were both recovered. It was the first time in the Concorde's three-decade history that the supersonic jet has been involved in a fatal accident, and it prompted Air France and British Airways to suspend all Concorde operations. We go now to Peter Humi, who's been covering the story all day from Paris -- Peter.</s>PETER HUMI, CNN PARIS BUREAU CHIEF: Well, Willow, it's about 1:00 in the morning here in Paris, it is pitch black. Nevertheless, the investigators are on the site and, as you mentioned, there was confirmation about 30 or 40 minutes ago that two flight data recorder boxes, also known as black boxes, of course, have been recovered. That confirmation coming from the French civil aviation authority. Now, this is a key element. It will provide probably the best clue as to what actually happened on the flight. The Concorde had literally just taken off from Charles de Gaulle Airport about 15 kilometers, 10 or so miles to the north of Paris, and when the accident happened, eyewitnesses and, in fact, some dramatic still photographs clearly indicated there were flames shooting out from one of the Concorde's engines. So the black box will provide a very important clue, as will recent maintenance records of the plane. The plane was looked at and checked just four days ago, but hadn't received a full overhaul since last September. Looking now at some of the devastation caused by the crash, the Concorde landing on a hotel very close to Charles de Gaulle, it did enable the rescue services such as firefighters to get on to the scene very quickly. They were called in, obviously, from Charles de Gaulle Airport. Eyewitnesses reported a huge ball of flame as the Concorde impacted. And of the deaths on the ground are believed to be of the hotel staff, the Concorde landing, or crashing, I should say, on to the hotel. So investigation under way. The black boxes have been recovered and we expect to hear -- get more information in the hours that come. Back to you.</s>BAY: Peter Humi from Paris, thank you for the update -- Stuart.</s>VARNEY: Thank you, Willow. Turning back to financial news now, Wall Street turned in a solid day as the markets reversed a two-day losing streak. Boosting stock prices today: strong profit news from some high-tech heavyweights. The Nasdaq rose 48 points, rising back above that 4,000 level, but still standing in negative territory for the calendar year. A weaker showing for blue chips as the Dow rose nearly 15 points, reaching 10,700, that was on light volume. Now check today's major movers: Texas Instruments right at the top of that list, it beat profits estimates and forecast even better results ahead, it was up nearly 4 1/2. Nextel surged 5 1/4. And Qualcomm up 4 3/4 after saying it would spin off its circuits business. Look at Sun Microsystems, it gained more than 8 1/2. And Applied Materials up 4.</s>BAY: Another company driving today's positive momentum: AT&T; after beating street profit forecasts, earning nearly $2 billion. Peter Viles takes a look at AT&T; and some of the other major corporations that reported today.</s>PETER VILES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The turnaround Michael Armstrong is trying to pull off at AT&T; will take months, or even years, but this was at least a step in the right direction. Ma Bell beat street estimates by 4 cents a share and its ailing stock gained more than 50 cents.</s>CHARLES NOSHI, CFO, AT&T;: We saw strong growth, over 10 percent in broadband, over 31 percent in our wireless business. And we think improving performance in our business services unit and the expected declines in consumer long distance.</s>VILES: But revenue grew only 4 1/2 percent, and with AT&T; shares still down 25 percent for the year, analysts are not sold on the comeback just yet.</s>JIM LINNEHAN, THOMAS WEISEL: Some of the language that Mike Armstrong used in today's call were sort of very -- we'll say -- recovery-mode type language, like, you know, aggressive actions in place, corrective actions in place, the company is under -- running the ship, second half is -- you know, looks great. So the language was very upbeat and optimistic. Yet the results were a bit mixed and even the guidance was a bit down for the second half of the year.</s>VILES: McDonald's met street expectations, earning 39 cents a share in what it called a disappointing quarter. But its shares gained nearly a dollar on talk of a stronger second half. The oil giants reported staggering numbers. ExxonMobil beat the street by 11 cents and earned $4.5 billion, that's more than $50 million a day. Chevron tripled earnings to $1.1 billion and also beat the street. But both stocks slipped fractionally as investors continue to bet that oil prices are headed lower. (on camera): But this continues to be a rock-solid earnings season. With two-thirds of the S&P; 500 now reported, First Call projects second quarter earnings for those companies will beat last year's levels by 20 percent. Peter Viles, CNN Financial News, New York.</s>VARNEY: After the bell today, a standout profit report from a cutting-edge company already in the spotlight this week, that's Nortel. The fiber-optic hot shot beat expectations with quarterly profits, and investors clearly liked the news. The stock up 4 1/2 points in moderate after-hours trading. Bruce Francis reports.</s>BRUCE FRANCIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): When major telecoms want to build state-of-the-art optical networks, increasingly, they're choosing Nortel's networking gear. Those optical sales more than double. That helped Nortel book almost $8 billion in revenue in its second quarter, up 48 percent. Net income increased 75 percent to $561 million, or 18 cents a share, 3 cents better than analysts were expecting, excluding special items.</s>WOJTEK UZDELEWICZ, BEAR STEARNS: Now, there was some concerns earlier on that they were capacity constrained. It's very clear from the revenues that they beat the numbers by a huge margin. So, definitely improving execution in terms of revenue side.</s>FRANCIS: Nortel also told analysts to expect revenue growth in 2000 to increase to around 40 percent, up from 35 percent. Profit should rise in the 30 percent range. And in 2001, revenue and earnings should grow 30 to 35 percent, more than twice the estimated rate for the industry. Analysts say that Nortel has been benefitting from unprecedented demand for networking gear with a buildout of the Internet. It helps, too, that archrival Lucent has stumbled.</s>ALEX HENDERSON, SALOMON SMITH BARNEY: There is no question they're beating out the competition. If you look at the growth rate in optical at Lucent in the quarter just reported at 27 percent, and then compare that to the triple-digit growth in optical at Nortel, there is no comparison.</s>FRANCIS: On a conference call with analysts, Nortel sidestepped questions about a possible business combination with Corning. But the company did say that it is concerned with the consolidation among its parts suppliers. Just look at all the people that JDSU has been buying up.</s>VARNEY: Yes, well said. Bruce Francis, thanks very much.</s>FRANCIS: My pleasure.</s>VARNEY: Willow.</s>BAY: Coming up, Compaq reports how PC's have paid off on the bottom line, but will it be enough to win back investor confidence. We'll ask Compaq boss Michael Capellas.