A Wild Ride And Another Investigation
Stocks
are lower on mixed economic news. Retail sales
for January were lower than expected with sales down 0.3% to $322.87 billion.
Excluding auto sales, total sales rose by 0.9%. Healthcare provider Aetna
(
AET |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) reported fourth-quarter earnings of $249.5 million, ahead of analyst
estimates. Revenue fell by 3% to $4.57 billion due to declining membership and
investment returns. The company expects 2004 earnings to reach $6.30 per
share. Sonus Networks
(
SONS |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) may need to restate 2003 earnings
because of improperly recorded revenue. Earlier this month, SONS had to delay
its fourth-quarter filings. The stock is down 40% from its peak a month ago and
-18% for the day.
The FDA approved ImClone
Systems’
(
IMCL |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) cancer drug Erbitux at 1:55 PM ET. Minutes before the news
came out the stock dropped dramatically — down 23%. The stock was then halted
at $33.11 at 1:33 PM ET; the Nasdaq said that they were waiting for additional
information from the company and that the halt was not due to any unusual
activity. At 4:28 PM ET IMCL began trading again, opening at 46.97. The SEC is
investigating suspicious trading.
Dell
(
DELL |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
reported Q4 0.29, beating by a penny with $11.51B vs $11.52B with improving
marginsand record low operating expenses.
| Dow | -43.63 |
10694.07 |
| S&P 500 |
-2.92 | 1154.63 |
| Nasdaq | -8.05 | 2081.57 |
The day’s leading sectors were
Airlines
(
XAL.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) +2.42%, Healthcare
(
HMO.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) +1.71%,
Natural Gas
(
XNG.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) +1.04%, and Oil Services
(
OSX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) +1.18%.
Weak today were
Gold
(
XAU.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) -1.69%,
Semis
(
SOX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) -1.52%, Networking
(
NWX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) -1.09%and
Pharmaceuticals
(
PPH.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) -0.85%.
Economic news releases included
Initial Claims rising by 23K to 363K; Retail sales dropping 0.3% (excluding auto
sales, retail sales rose by 0.9%). Business inventories rose by 0.3%, in line
with estimates.
10-year Notes were -065
at 114 150
The dollar
was +0.02 at 85.2.
Gold was +0.81 at
412.95.
Crude Oil was -0.02 at
33.98.
Volume was 1,456,789,000 on
the NYSE, and 1,901,031,000 on the Nasdaq.
Market breadth was Negative.
| NYSE | Issues | |
| Advancing | 1401 | Up Vol 612 |
| Declining | 1857 | Down Vol 763 |
| Ratio | 1.32 | 1.24 |
| Nasdaq | ||
| Advancing | 1231 | Up Vol 681 |
| Declining | 1915 | Dow Vol 1125 |
| Ratio | 1.34 | 1.65 |
Stocks in the news:
Whole Foods Market
(
WFMI |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) experienced
a rosy quarter from the ongoing supermarket strike in Southern California as its
earnings shot up 51% from $25.6 million to $38.7 million on revenue of $1.11
billion.
XM Satellite Radio
(
XMSR |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) reported a
net loss of $162.9 million on sales of $33.5 million. Its net subscriber base
rose by 246%.
Brocade Communications
(
BRCD |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
reported a net loss of $36.8 million that included various one-time
charges. Excluding such charges, the company earned 3 cents a share, one penny
higher than analysts’ estimates. Revenue rose to $145 million from higher
storage-sector demand. CSFB and First Albany upgraded the stock on the news.
Retailer CVS
(
CVS |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) reported net
earnings of $263.4 million on net sales of $7.45 billion. Strong sales of flu
medicine, a reduction in inventory losses and higher gross margins contributed
to the better earnings.