Usual suspects show green
Another day. Another
Nasdaq record. Another narrow advance. Another Internet rise. You get the
picture. It hasn’t changed much in the past two weeks.
With the institutions clamoring to get
onto a train that caught many off-guard when it left the station some weeks ago,
most of the usual suspects showed green. That meant more wins for bellwether
technologys, the semis and Internets, in particular.
But away from computerland, all other
broad sectors were immersed in red ink. The financials squandered a second day
of contratrend rally in bonds thanks to an earnings warning from U.S. Bancorp,
while the oils saw leaner quotations despite an 85-cent-a-barrel rise to $26.66.
Benchmark
techs clung to most of their morning gains when the closing bell
rang after an early-afternoon bout of selling vanished in the final 45 minutes
of action. Motorola showed the best tone, up 7% on volume 29% greater
than average as it broke out of an abbreviated 2-week base…Another winners was
Applied Materials, clearing a 2 1/2-week base on volume 14% less than
average…Lucent, which had busted out of its own 5-month base Friday,
failed on its follow-through attempt Monday, though volume contracted 18%, a
mild positive when it occurs on a downday…Sun Micro and Cisco did
follow through after rebounding smartly late last week–volume in each
contracted from that of Friday…WorldCom was only able to muster all of
a 3/16-point rise intraday before closing down on the heels of last week’s
tumble…IBM followed through on Friday’s move out of a 6-day congestion
area–the stock’s outperformed over the past five weeks…
Among telecoms, Tellabs
continued its decay, coming under intense distribution on its heaviest volume in
14 weeks–the stock gave a hint of trouble to come when it shriveled on a
pick-up in activity on Nov. 24 and Nov. 30.– this while other telecoms
advanced…Ericsson followed through on Friday’s breakout from a two-week
base amid volume 49% above its norm…ditto for Nokia, which Friday had
vaulted to record ground after a three-day consolidation–Monday’s jaunt came on
activity 180% more than usual…not to be outdone, Nortel reclaimed
record turf after a week-long consolidation, rising 5% on turnover 20% brisker
than average.
In cyberspace,
top-tier names
rode higher. Yahoo! was the star, shooting up 27 3/4 points on volume
over twice its norm, and the heaviest in eight weeks.
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