How News Hit The Indexes
More negative news weighed on the
techs Thursday while a stymied merger took the Dow down a notch.
The Dow Jones industrials declined
1.7%, the Nasdaq Composite 3.7%, the S&P 500 1.8%.
General Electric
(
GE |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) and Honeywell
International
(
HON |
Quote |
Chart |
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PowerRating) acknowledged that their proposed $42.3 billion merger
had run into antitrust opposition from regulatory officials of the 15-nation
European Union. Honeywell fell 12.2%, General Electric
(
GE |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) picked up 2.1%,
as arbitrageurs unwound longs on Honeywell and shorts on GE. Both are Dow stocks
as well as United Technologies, which gave ground as the arbs speculated the
company would renew its acquisition interest in Honeywell.
Nearly all the major sectors were down
or confined to insignificant up moves. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index
(
$SOX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
shed 5.5%. No. 1 chip maker Intel
(
INTC |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) fell 4.5% after Texas Instruments
(
TXN |
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Chart |
News |
PowerRating)Â reiterated its Q2 outlook that revenue would decrease 20%
percent from Q1. Texas Instruments sank 7.4%.
The AMEX Internet Index
(
$IIX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
slid 4.7%, the Goldman Sachs Internet Index
(
$GIN.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) 4.0%. A downgrade of
Corning
(
GLW |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) hurt the networkers. The Amex Securities Broker/Dealer Index
(
$XBD |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) lost 3.3%, the S&P Transportation Index
(
$TRX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating).
The only major sector index to post a
gain of at least 1% was the Philadelphia Gold & Silver Index
(
$XAU.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating),
which rose 1.4%.
Among the stocks, Micromuse
(
MUSE |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
lost 31.8% after Deutsche Banc’s Alex Brown downgraded the software
company to “buy” from “strong buy” following cautious
comments by Micromuse about business conditions.
E-business player BEA Systems
(
BEAS |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
declined 14.0%.
On the upside, Lincare Holdings
(
LNCR |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
rose 4.0%. The company and its subsidiaries is a provider of oxygen and other
respiratory therapy services to patients in the home.
Spinnaker Exploration
(
SKE |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) gained
4.5%. Spinnaker is an independent producer of natural gas and oil in the
Gulf of Mexico.
Among the Dow stocks, Microsoft
(
MSFT |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
lost 2.5%, American Express
(
AXP |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) 4.2%, Boeing
(
BA |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) 3.0% and Citigroup
(
C |
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Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
2.6%. United Technologies
(
UTX |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating), a potential suitor for Honeywell, gave up
3.9%. On the upside, General Motors
(
GM |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) and Merck
(
MRK |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) each added
1.1%.Â