Leaning Negative
Following Wednesday’s mixed and worry-ridden trading, stocks look unified to
the downside Thursday. The Dow’s nearly 1% decline Wednesday leaves it down 7%
for the year, while the Nasdaq is off just over 4% year-to-date.
The Nasdaq futures are down 43 points, and the Dow futures are down 30 points.
The S&Ps look to open down 3.7 points, while the yield and the 10-year
Treasury are holding steady at 5.88%.
Thursday News
Morgan Stanley Dean Witter
(
MWD |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) announced third-quarter earnings of 1.09
per share, and that fell short of the 1.17 per share that First Call/Thomson
Financial had expected. Morgan Stanley closed Wednesday up 1/8 to 95 15/16.
Voice-recognition software maker Lernout & Hauspie
(
LHSP |
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Chart |
News |
PowerRating) is down
sharply on word the SEC is investigating the firm for accounting irregularities.
Lernout closed Wednesday down 3 1/2 to 21 1/4 and is trading down to 16 3/8 in
pre-market activity.
Liberate Technologies
(
LBRT |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) is up on news that AT&T
(
T |
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Chart |
News |
PowerRating) will test
Liberate’s interactive television software. Liberate closed Wednesday up 2 1/8
to 28 11/16 and is trading up to 31 7/8 in pre-market activity.
Wednesday Follow-up
eBay [ EBAY|EBAY] was one of the star performers on the Nasdaq Wednesday,
rising 16% to 76 9/16 after positive comments from the company and an analyst
upgrade from Salomon Smith Barney. eBay is pulling back by about 3 points and is
trading at 73 in pre-market activity. Interestingly, eBay received an analyst
downgrade from CS First Boston.