Here’s The Best News In 20 Years

October 30, 2003
Vincent Mao

This
morning’s news of the economy’s fastest growth since 1984 inspired an
early session buying, but the indices are off their highs, as stocks are
consolidating. However, valuation issues and a disappointing earnings report
from ExxonMobil are weighing on stocks. Most analysts believe the reason for the
decline of the market was that it was already full of good news and investors
just wanted to seize their profits.

In addition to the GDP number,
Initial Jobless Claims reported remained below the 400K level at 386K, a sign of
payroll deduction. This was the third straight week below the 400K
level. Nonetheless, the Dow is up 200 points for the week — we can’t ask for
too much in such a short period of time.

Economic releases today
included Chain Deflator-Adv at 1.7%, 0.2% higher than the expected 1.5%;
Employment Cost Index was at 1.0%; Initial Claims at 385K; Help-Wanted Index at
37; and lastly, GDP figures surprised the entire industry as it reached a
20-year high of 7.2%. FOMC Minutes will be released at 2PM EST later this
afternoon.

10-year Bonds are -285
at 112 2200.

Dollar is -0.16 at
91.96.

Gold is +/-0 at 3870.

Crude Oil is -0.38 at
28.53.

Volume is 656,000,000 on
the NYSE, and 973,000,000 on the Nasdaq.

Market breadth is positive,
with NYSE advancing issues over declining issues by 1.48 and up over down volume
by 1.42; Nasdaq advancing issues over declining issues at 1.01, and down volume
over up volume at 1.34.

Top Dow stocks are:

Stocks in the news:

Providian Financial
(
PVN |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
went down 10% after reporting third-quarter profit as analysts were debating on
26 cents of the 29 cents the company earned. They earned $85.3 million compared
with $42.1 million a year ago the same quarter. Analysts from UBS and Raymond
James both downgraded PVN on concerns of the legitimacy of their earnings on
lower-than-expected marketing costs.

ExxonMobil |XOM|XOM]
disappointed investors by earning only 55 cents, down from the 62 cents analysts
polled by Thomson First Call had predicted. Despite earning an increase of $210
million from exploration and production activities, net income only rose to
$3.65 billion. Refining and marketing net reached $911million, an increase of
$711 million. Crude Oil produce was up 1% from production in West Africa and
Canada while Natural gas production fell 10% from lower demand in Europe. XOM is
down 3%.

Dynergy
(
DYN |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) was
able to muster a profit $1.19 billion, a reversal from the 1.7 billion loss a
year ago. $1.18 billion of the gain was from the restructuring of preferred
stock previously helped by ChevronTexaco
(
CVX |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating). DYN’s revenue rose
6.7% to $1.38 billion, well ahead of analysts’ estimates. The company missed
Wall-Street expectations on operating profit but was able to earn $5 million
from higher power and commodity prices

Akamai Technologies
(
AKAM |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
posted their smallest loss in five years on higher revenue. AKAM rose 28% on the
news and reached a two-year high. They were able to cut their losses by over $40
million to $3.9 million. Prudential gave a thumbs up by upgrading them to
“overweight”.

Bausch & Lomb
(
BOL |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
beat expectations as it recorded a 32.3 million profit in the third quarter. The
increase was due to strong sales in contact lenses and eye-care drugs. Sales
were up 9% to $508.8 million and they upped fourth-quarter profits by 2 cents to
$2.50 to $2.60 a share. BOL closed down a plant in Miami in order to lower
manufacturing costs; this reduced their payroll to around 11,500.