$5 Gain After The Close!
Stocks
made a late-day rally on the heels of Greenspan’s remarks that lost jobs will be
replaced. The Dow closed at a 31-month high and
the Nasdaq a 2 1/2 year high.
with fewer new highs and a weaker advance/decline line
today, but no real selling pressure.
Approximately 30% of the companies listed in the
S&P 500 index are expected to report earnings this week. So far, earnings are
up 27%. Drug manufacturer Schering-Plough
(
SGP |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) reported a
disappointing fourth quarter as as it lost $181 million on revenues of $8.33
billion. SGP also warned analysts to expect lower numbers for 2004 due to
increased competition from the generic drug industry. Consumer goods maker
Kimberly-Clark
(
KMB |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) reported a 24% increase in profit despite a major
price war with competitor Proctor & Gamble
(
PG |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating). Net income rose to $459.5
million on sales of $3.7 billion. Top battery and razor maker Energizer
(
ENR |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
reported higher earnings with its sales rising 42% to $811.7 million. Earnings
for the quarter rose 33% to $115 million. Lastly, the Federal Reserve begins a
two-day meeting tomorrow and is expected to leave interest rates unchanged at
the 45-year low of 1%.
| Dow | +134.22 |
10702.51 |
| S&P 500 |
+13.82 |
1155.37 |
| Nasdaq | +29.96 |
2153.83 |
The day’s leading sectors were
Networking
(
NWX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) +3.94%, Hardware
(
HWI.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) +2.98%,
Semis
(
SOX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) +2.42%, Disk Drives
(
DDX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) +2.32%.
Weak today were Amex Gold
Bugs
(
HUI.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) -1.07%, and Airlines
(
XAL.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) -0.74%.
Economic news releases included
higher December Existing Home Sales at $6.47 million.
10-year Notes were -150
at 113 170
Dollar was +0.66 at
87.22
Crude Oil was -0.46 at
34.47
Volume was
1,445,395,000
on the NYSE, and 1,931,760,000
on the Nasdaq.
Market breadth was positive.
| NYSE | Issues | |
| Advancing | 1868 | Up Vol 972 |
| Declining | 1432 | Down Vol 389 |
| Ratio | 1.30 | 2.49 |
| Nasdaq | ||
| Advancing | 2063 | Up Vol 1386 |
| Declining | 1144 | Down Vol 509 |
| Ratio | 1.80 | 2.72 |
Stocks in the news:
After the bell, Novellus
(
NVLS |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
reported .07 in Q4 vs. a .06 estimate, beat on revenues, and named a new
president, Sasson Somekh, formerly at Applied
Materials. Texas Instruments
(
TXN |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) beat by .03, earning 0.22 in the
fourth quarter; revenue was up 9%. Agilent
(
A |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) rose $5 after the close;
the company is guiding higher, saying revenues could hit $1.63 – $1.68,
with earnings anticipated to be $0.20 to $0.24 per share from .05 – .15
previously expected. Altera
(
ALTR |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) was in-line after a charge but
missed on revenue. The company also approved a 10 million increase in its stock
repurchase plan.
Printer maker Lexmark International
(
LXK |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
reported fourth-quarter earnings of $138.8 million on sales of $1.37 billion.
Both numbers indicated a strong demand for its printers but the manufacturer
cautioned investors on the outlook due to increased competition.
Idexx Laboratories
(
IDXX |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) reported
earnings of $12.4 million as its shares traded 5% higher. Revenue was up 18% to
$124.8 million.
Tyson Foods
(
TSN |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) rose 11% after
reporting net income of $57 million on sales of $6.5 billion. Higher margins
and improved pricing enabled the company to shrug off declines due to the
mad-cow disease effect.
eBay
(
EBAY |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) announced it has agreed
to purchase German online classified listings company Mobile.de for $152
million.
bricew@tradingmarkets.com