• On edge Wall Street was skittish yesterday as it waited for some of America's largest companies to report their results late last night.

The technology sector was particularly nervous ahead of announcements from bellwether companies such as IBM, the world's biggest computer hardware group, and Apple, the software company.

The Nasdaq composite index was trading up just 16 points at midday after a weak morning. America Online , the internet service provider which announced the ground- breaking takeover of Time Warner last week, was also due to report earnings after markets closed in New York.

IBM was expected to report a 14% drop in quarterly earnings largely because customers stopped buying large computers in the run-up to the end of the year.

The company horrified Wall Street several months ago when it warned that fears over Y2K would hit sales.

Some analysts now believe that sales of mainframe computers could be as much as 60% lower than the same time last year.