2 Big Earnings Reports After The Close
Stocks
are mixed in choppy trading. Kodak
(
EK |
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PowerRating)
said it will lay off up to 150,000 jobs and take a $1.7 billion charge over the
three years to move from the sluggish film market toward digital products. This
decision is expected to save the company up to $1 billion by 2007. EK’s net
fourth-quarter income fell by 83% to $19 million. Auto-maker Ford Motor
(
F |
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PowerRating)
reported a larger-than-expected net loss of $793 million for the quarter on
sales of $164.2 billion. eBay
(
EBAY |
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PowerRating) reported much stronger holiday
season sales, up 57% with international revenue almost doubling. Income rose to
$157 million on $648.4 million revenue.
Today, the US Justice
Department indicted Former Enron accounting chief Richard Causey on five counts
of securities fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit fraud. After
the close, Microsoft
(
MSFT |
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PowerRating) and KLA Tencor
(
KLAC |
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PowerRating) will
report their earnings, with the Street looking for 30 cents on MSFT and 19 cents
on KLAC.
US equity inflows for the first
11 days in January were $10.5B; the prior 11-day record was February 2000, with
$6.6B.
| Dow | +22.32 |
10645.36 |
| S&P 500 |
+0.31 | 1147.93 |
| Nasdaq | -6.79 | 2135.78 |
The day’s leading sectors are
Airlines
(
XAL.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) +4.90%, Amex Gold Bugs
(
HUI.X |
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Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
+2.09%, Gold and Silver
(
XAU.X |
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Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
+1.42%, and Retail
(
RLX.X |
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Chart |
News |
PowerRating) +0.88%.
Weak today are Disk Drives
(
DDX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) -2.91%, and Networking
(
NWS.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) -2.65%.
Economic news releases today
included Initial claims dropping to 341,000, and leading indicators that rose by
0.2%.
10-year Notes are +135
at 114 195
The dollar
is -0.57 at 86.03
Gold is +2.00 at 412.50
Crude Oil is -0.53 at
33.47
Volume is 911,000,000 on
the NYSE, and 1,280,000,000 on the Nasdaq.
Market breadth is mixed.
| NYSE | Issues | |
| Advancing | 1687 | Up Vol 397 |
| Declining | 1495 | Down Vol 499 |
| Ratio | 1.14 | 1.26 |
| Nasdaq | ||
| Advancing | 1281 | Up Vol 504 |
| Declining | 1804 | Down Vol 745 |
| Ratio | 1.51 | 1.48 |
Top Dow stocks are:
Eastman Kodak [EK|EK],
+10.50% at 30.35, Hewlett Packard [HPQ|HPQ],
+1.63% at 25.64, Alcoa
(
AA |
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Chart |
News |
PowerRating), +1.70% at 52.37, and Caterpillar [CAT|CAT],
+0.81% at 84.10,
Stocks in the news:
Pfizer [PFE|PFE],
reported earnings of $602 million with revenue growing by 52% to $14.17 billion,
well ahead of analysts’ consensus. For fiscal year 2004, the company expects to
earn $2.13 a share on revenue of $54 billion.
Automatic Data Processing
(
ADP |
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News |
PowerRating)
reported net income of $228.6 million, on revenue of $1.83 billion. The company
said that growth in brokerage, employer and dealer services business was strong
while its claims division was weak.
F5 Networks
(
FFIV |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) rose 20% after
posting better-than-expected quarter results. Net income rose to $3.8 million
with revenue at $36.1 million. For the next quarter, the company expects to earn
14 cents per share on revenue of $38 million.
Starbucks
(
SBUX |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) rose after reporting
a strong holiday season sales with earning jumping 41% to 110.8 million.
Overall sales rose 28% by $1.28 billion from $1.01 billion a year ago, with
same-store sales rising 11%.
bricew@tradingmarkets.com