More Pain For Telcos, Nets
An earnings warning from Lucent
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trashed the telecom and Internet sectors and dragged the Nasdaq down 2.2% for
its fifth-straight down day. The Dow and S&P 500 were also under pressure,
losing 1.0% and 1.5%, respectively.
Nasdaq volume jumped 24% from Tuesday’s level, as a heavy 2.32 billion shares
traded, while NYSE volume vaulted 32% to 1.38 billion shares.
While many analysts remain dour on the market’s near-term prospects, some saw
opportunities surfacing in a market that remained in a correction mode rather
than a bear mode.
“I think the market is a fabulous buying opportunity here. The S&P 500 is around 11% off of its all-time high today, and that
tends to be the dividing line between corrections and bear markets. I do not see
this being a bear market decline, which would make it now be like 1998, 1990, 1987, and
1993,” said Robert Robbins, Market Strategist, The Robinson-Humphrey Co.
“Those are the only four times in the last 18 years that we have had significantly bigger problems and bigger declines than we have had now. I
don’t see those kinds of problems. The inflation outlook is getting better, and
finance stocks are leading, which is also important,” he added.
According to preliminary numbers, the Nasdaq fell 72.37 to 3168.17, the Dow
slid 110.61 to 10,413.79, and the S&P 500 lost 21.39 to 1364.55.Â
Top sectors were forest and paper products
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services
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broker/dealers
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Sectors under pressure were Internets
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down 4.8%, and gold and silver
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Lucent
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1998. Lucent warned that upcoming earnings would fall significantly below
analyst expectations.
Yahoo!
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cautionary statements about upcoming quarters.
Also hit hard for words of caution was Motorola
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to 21 5/8 despite beating earnings estimates.
One of the few tech bright spots was Microsoft
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or 2.2% to 55 3/4 on news that the company’s appeals court date had been
set.Â
Looking ahead, economic news set for a Friday release includes the Producer Price Index and retail
sales figure for September.