Flat Tuesday
Stocks finished Tuesday election day essentially flat, as no clear trend or
winner emerged by the end of trading. All three major indices drifted between
positive and negative, and by the bell the Dow, Nasdaq and S&P 500 were each
in the red by less than 1/4 of one percent.
Nasdaq volume increased by 8% over Monday’s level, with 1.7 billion shares
changing hands. NYSE volume eased slightly, with 876 million shares trading.
Most analysts were focused on interpreting Cisco’s better-than-expected
earnings as well as preparing for a potential "post-uncertainty" rally
regardless of whether the new President is Bush or Gore.
"Over on the Nasdaq, the Cisco report is still being digested. Moving
forward, it just looks like there’s still a lot of concern about the slowing
telco spending and there’s also a healthy skepticism about Cisco’s ability to
continue to post the kind of growth rates we’ve seen," said Terence
Gabriel, Stock Market Strategist, IDEAGlobal.com
"Keep in mind that the market does remain in a bearish phase here, and
although we can see rather dramatic one and two day moves higher, we still
remain in a lower-trending market," he added.
According to preliminary numbers, the Dow fell 25.03 to 10,952, the Nasdaq
lost 0.41 to 3415.80, and the S&P 500 eased 0.32 to 1431.87.
Top sectors included Internets
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up 1.9%, and forest and paper products
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On the downside were transportation
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semiconductors
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After the bell on Monday, Cisco Systems
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per share for the third quarter, and that topped earnings estimates by a penny.
Cisco gapped down at the open and traded down to 53 before reversing to finish
up to
Worries over Cisco’s ability to maintain its torrid growth rate put pressure
on some of the related chip and component makers. Taking big hits were Broadcom
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11/16, and Vitesse Semiconductor
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Helping the Internets was AOL
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increased volume. AOL has now rallied more than 20 points from its October 18
intraday low of 37.
As for the market’s outlook for the election, a random sampling of what many
consider Bush stocks were slightly higher. Phillip Morris
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gained 3/8 to 35 1/4, Pfizer
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(defense) added 1/4 to 80 13/16, and Microsoft
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70 1/2.
Looking ahead, aside from the election, traders will be looking to Thursday’s Producer Price Index numbers which will be released at 8:30 AM ET. Estimates look for increases in the PPI and PPI core rate of 0.1% each.