RIMM Halted At The Close — Here’s Why

The market rose Monday
on the heels of an IBM upgrade by CSFB. The Nasdaq made a fresh 18-month high,
closing at the highs, and the last time the SPX closed this high was 6/18/02.
Biotech was in the news today, with the index gaining over 18%. Retail was
weak for a fourth straight session as downgrades from RBC Capital Markets and
Sanford Bernstein weighed on the sector. Bernstein downgraded Target and
Wal-Mart, while RBC downgraded Gap and Ann Taylor. Bonds reversed mid-day to
the downside.

Today’s Market Indices:

The
Dow Jones Industrial Average
(
$INDU.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating), +82.95 at 9586.29.

The S&P 500
(
$SPX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating), +10.25 at
1031.64.

The Nasdaq
(
$COMPQ |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating), +30.41 at 1888.65.

Today’s Leading Sectors:

Networking Index
(
$NWX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating), +3.64%

Biotechnology Index
(
$BTK.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating), +3.90%

Semiconductor Index
(
$GSM.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating), +2.84%

S&P Health Care Index
(
$HCX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating), +2.35%.

Today’s Weak Sectors:

S&P Retail Index
(
$RLX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating), -.28%

Gold and Silver Sector Index
(
$XAU.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating),
-0.09%

Economic News:

Producer Price Index, Retail Sales,
University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment, Industrial Production, and Capacity
Utilization reports are due later this week and they should be able to shed
further light as to the strength of continued economic recovery.

Key Futures:

The 10-year U.S. Note was -060 at 112 200

The dollar was +.28 at 97.37

Gold was -.60 at 375.50.

Crude Oil was -0.01 at 28.85

Volume was 1,307,603,000 on the NYSE, and
2,016,345,000 on the Nasdaq.

Market breadth was positive, with NYSE advancing
issues over declining issues by 2.46:1 and Nasdaq advancing issues over
declining issues at 2.06:1.

After the close, Research In Motion ]RIMM|RIMM]
was halted, pending news. The company is scheduled to release preliminary 2Q
results of .02 – .05/share (.07 – .11 before items) with revenue between
$123-126 million).

Bank of America
(
BAC |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating), the Charlotte, N.C-based
bank, said it will return management and advisory fees to shareholders of
funds implicated in an investigation of trading abuses. New York Attorney
General Eliot Spitzer has accused Bank of America, one of four mutual-fund
companies, of letting hedge fund Canary Capital Partners LLC make short-term
trades in exchange for fees and deposits in longer-term accounts.

IBM
(
IBM |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) advanced after Credit
Suisse First Boston upgraded IBM to an “outperform” from “neutral” as it
expects Big Blue to benefit from a turnaround in tech spending. The investment
bank raised its 2004 earnings estimate to $5.10 per share from $4.80 and
expects the stock to trade at $102 per share within 12 months.

Retailing giant Wal-Mart
(
WMT |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
reported that weekly same-store sales in September are coming in as expected,
but have slowed from the pace set in August. Wal-Mart said that it expects
same-store sales in September to rise 3%-5%.

Barr Labs {BRL|BRL] got approval to market its
extended cycle  oral contraceptive, and First Albany raised its rating to
“strong buy” from “buy.”

Intel
(
INTC |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating), the world’s
biggest maker of semiconductors, will offer new versions of its latest Itanium
processor for computer servers as it tries to win customers from Sun
Microsystems, said the Wall Street Journal, quoting Lisa
Graff, Intel’s director of enterprise processor marketing.

Xoma
(
XOMA |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) gained 12% on the day before
dermatology experts are scheduled to vote on Raptiva, a psoriasis treatment.
The drug, if approved, would be Xoma’s first commercial product.

If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to email me.

Brice Wightman