Two Pieces of the Puzzle
Today’s Market Flash is
written by Daniel Beighley
The major indexes remain
in a narrow trading range on the heels of disappointing economic
data. The Commerce Department revised its earlier GDP contraction from 0.04% to
1.1%. This is the largest third quarter decline since the first quarter of 1991 when the
contraction was 2%. Also, a report from the
Purchasing Management
Association of Chicago index said purchasing activity fell to a level of 41.1, down from
46.2 in October. This report is widely considered to be a good forecast for the
National Association of Purchasing Management’s numbers which come out Monday
morning.
Shares of Enron
(
ENE |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) fell another 25%
today as it has become a concern whether or not the company will have any
functional capacity. The company has now filed for bankruptcy as issues for
reform are debated. Dynegy
(
DYN |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) down 4.15%, has announced that it
exercised an option to acquire $1.5 billion in preferred stock in Enron’s
Northern Natural Gas unit.
Leading sectors today are the Airline Index
(
$XAL.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating), up 3.63% at 87, and the GTSI Hardware Index
(
$GHA.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating), up
2.01% at 258.29.
The biggest losing sectors today are the
Semiconductor Index
(
$SOX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating), down 0.95% at 519.30, and the
Street.com Internet Index
(
$DOT.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating), down 0.79% at 422.80.
From our point gainers list:
Beazer Homes
(
BZH |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) is up 7.08% on 100%
volume. This home building company was upgraded by Solomon Smith Barney to
Outperform from Neutral.
Dianon Systems Inc.
(
DIAN |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) is up 8.97% on
almost two times average volume. There is no news on this healthcare company.
InVision Technologies Inc.
(
INVN |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) is up
18.89% on
over two times average volume. The security systems company announced that the
Federal Aviation Administration has bought several detection systems used for
identifying concealed weapons.
From our point losers list:
Novellus
Systems
(
NVLS |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) is down
8.53% on over 100% average volume. The semiconductor company announced that it
would not turn a profit for the first and second quarters of next year.
Manhattan Associates Inc.
(
MANH |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) is down
8.59% on
over 100% average volume. The company was added to the S&P 500 index yesterday.
KLA-Tencor
(
KLAC |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) is down 5.61%. The
stock is suffering with the rest of the semiconductor index from a weak
forecast by Novellus Systems.