$30 Billion Stock Buy-Back!
Stocks were
higher as Greeenspan gave a mostly positive report to the Senate.
The Fed chief delivered his semi-annual testimony to the
Senate Banking Committee, saying although the economic expansion is creating
price pressures, inflation does not pose a major threatRichard Grasso
counter-sued the NYSE and John Reed in an attempt to collect at least $50
million for breach of contract. Ford
(
F |
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PowerRating) reported earnings that more
than doubled to $1.2 billion and upped FY earnings estimates by 15 cents. This
was the third time this year Ford raised its earnings forecast. The majority of
the earnings came from its finance arm, which offset weakness in its auto sales.
Wells Fargo
(
WFC |
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PowerRating)
reported earnings that rose 12% to 1.71 billion with revenue up 7% to $7.4
billion. The company’s lending income rose 6% to $4.23 billion with net interest
margin falling to 4.83% from 5.09% a year ago. Altria
(
MO |
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PowerRating) posted
earnings of $2.63 billion with revenue up 10.5% to $23.01 billion. The company
affirmed its full-year earnings forecasts and is expected to reach $4.50 a
share.
Charles Schwab CEO David
Pottruck resigned under pressure, with founder Charles Schwab taking over as
chief exec. The detail-oriented Pottruck joined Schwab from Shearson in the
1980s. SCH is trading up 7% on the news.
Microsoft
(
MSFT |
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PowerRating)
will buy back $30 billion of its stock, will pay a special one-time $3.00/share
dividend, or $32 billion, and will raise its quarterly dividend by 0.08,
essentially doubling it. The quarterly dividend will be payable on Sept. 14,
2004, to shareholders of record on Aug. 25, 2004. The stock rose 0.90 after
hours.
Sun Microsystems
(
SUNW |
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PowerRating)
missed by a penny. E*Trade
(
ET |
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PowerRating) beat by 0.12 and guided higher for
FY04.
| Dow | +9.29 | 10149.07 |
| S&P 500 | +7.77 | 1108.67 |
| Nasdaq | +33.24 | 1917.07 |
Strong today were: Internet
(
ECM.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) +3.46%, Airlines
(
XAL.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) +1.80%, Retail
(
RLX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating),
+1.74%, Disk Drives
(
DDX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) +1.13% Semis
(
SOX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
-1.27%.
Weak today were: Gold
(
HUI.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
-0.59%, Natural Gas
(
XNG.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) -0.59%, Insurance
(
IUX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
-0.52%.
Economic news releases include:
Housing starts that fell to 1802K, Building permits also dropped to 1924K.
10-year Notes were -240
at 111 185
The dollar
was +0.64 at 87.89
Gold was -4.40 at 401.30
Crude Oil was -1.04 at
40.40
Volume was 1.44 billion
on the NYSE, and 1.60 billion on the Nasdaq.
Market breadth was positive.
| NYSE | Issues | |
| Advancing | 1938 | Up Vol 974 |
| Declining | 1337 | Down Vol 443 |
| Ratio | 1.44 | 2.19 |
| Nasdaq |
||
| Advancing | 2103 | Up Vol 1319 |
| Declining | 998 | Down Vol 236 |
| Ratio | 2.10 | 5.58 |
Stocks in the news:
EMC
(
EMC |
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PowerRating)
posted earnings of $193 million with revenue up 33% to $1.97 billion. The
company said they were on track to reach mid-teens in operating margins
and expects earnings to reach 8 cents a share with revenue around $2 billion for
Q3.
Flextronics
(
FLEX |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) reported a profit
of $74.3 million with revenue up 25% to $3.88 billion. For Q2, it expects EPS of
15 cents a share.
Avery Dennison
(
AVY |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) fell after reporting earnings of $68.5 million with net
sales up 11% to $1.32 billion.
Brice Wightman
bricew@tradingmarkets.com
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