Two IPOs Trading At A Premium Today

May 20, 2004
Brice Wightman

Stocks
are lower on light volume after weekly initial claims rose by 12,000 to 345,000
for the week ended May 15. The four-week average fell 2,750 to
333,500; the average gives a better sense of the employment picture than the
volatile weekly number.

Oil prices remained strong, trading above $41 a barrel. OPEC will meet on
Saturday to discuss possible quota increases; Saudi Arabia has proposed a 1.5
million barrel per day increase. Saudia Arabia’s oil minister offered to build 2
refineries in the US. Cost: $70-100 million. It takes 5-7 years to get a
refinery up and running.

Ciena
(
CI |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) reported a
second-quarter loss of $76.2 million with revenue that rose to $74.7 million,
below consensus. The company expects third-quarter revenue to increase by up to
30%.

Intuit
(
INTU |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
reported a profit of $264 million with revenue up 12% to $713 million. Shares
fell 8% after the company issued a negative outlook, expecting a net loss of 11
cents with revenue in the $268 million range. Microsoft
(
MSFT |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) plans
to cut expenses by $80 million a year by charging employees for name-brand
drugs, cutting vacation time for new employees and reducing employee stock
discounts. MSFT has $50 billion in cash.

IPOs Blue Nile (NILE)
and Animas (PUMP) began trading today. Blue Nile, an online jewelry
retailer, was priced at $20.50 and is trading at $27.24. Animas, a maker of
insulin pumps, was priced at $15 and is trading at $17. The next big name
scheduled: Domino’s Pizza (DPZ). Expected range, $15-17, will trade on
the NYSE.

Dow	-25.97	9911.81
S&P 500	-2.26	1086.54
Nasdaq	-6.80	1891.44

Economic news releases today:
Initial claims that rose to 345,000, leading indicators up 0.1%, Philly Fed for
May, 23.8 vs. 31 consensus.

10-year Notes are +130
at 109 045

The dollar
is +0.61 at 91.27

Gold is -3.00 at 380.00

Crude Oil is +0.05 at
41.47

Volume is 511,000
million on the NYSE, and 756,000 million on the Nasdaq.

Market breadth is mixed.

NYSE	Issues
Advancing	1788	Up Vol 213
Declining	1327	Down Vol 267
Ratio	1.33	1.29
Nasdaq
Advancing	1344	Up Vol 322
Declining	1610	Down Vol 383
Ratio	1.21	1.19

Top Dow stocks are:

Stocks in the news:

Symantec
(
SYMC |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
acquired anti-spam technology leader Brightmail in a cash deal for $370 million.
Brightmail protects networks of enterprise service providers and wireless
carriers by filtering out spam viruses at the Internet Gateway.

Network equipment distributor Black Box
(
BBOX |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
reported earnings of $11.5 million on lower revenue of $130 million. The
earnings included a charge of $2 million to a federal securities lawsuit. Black
Box also expects to raise its dividend by 4 cents to 24 cents a share.

Brocade Communications

(
BRCD |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) reported a smaller net loss of $1.98 million on
revenue that was up 11% to $145.6 million. For the third-quarter, the company
forecasted an EPS of 4 cents on revenue of $150 million

Brice Wightman

bricew@tradingmarkets.com

Two IPOs Trading At A Premium Today

BUY THE FEAR, SELL THE GREED

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