Afternoon Market Rally, Plus, CEOs Optimistic

  • February 24, 2005
  • Brice Wightman

Stocks rose in a late
day turnaround, with homebuilders and energy leading the way 
The market rallied in the
morning–and later pulled back–on the news that oil inventories grew, forcing
oil prices down. The Energy Department said that inventories rose by 600,000
barrels and gas inventories rose by 1.8 million barrels.

Durable goods for January fell 0.09, more than
expected. Jobless claims for the week of 1/19 rose 9,000 to 312,000; the 4-week
moving average is now 308,750. Continuing claims were 2.65 million.

Search engine shares were lower across the board.
Google
(
GOOG |
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PowerRating) and Yahoo
(
YHOO |
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PowerRating) were cut at RBC. A
PriceWaterhouseCoopers study said that online ad revenue growth slowed in Q4. 
GOOG and YHOO were both down 2%. ASKJ fell 6%.

Time Warner
(
TWX |
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PowerRating) unit AOL is
launching a search engine.

FindWhat
(
FWHT |
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News |
PowerRating) posted flat earnings which missed estimate and
guided lower for Q1.

Boeing
(
BA |
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Chart |
News |
PowerRating) received a $4 billion order from Ryanair.

Of the CEOs surveyed by the Business Council and
the Conference Board, almost 85% said they expect higher profits over the next
year–and they see it driven by increased revenue rather than cost cutting.
Forty percent say they expect conditions to be even better in the next six
months. Geopolitical risks topped the CEOs’ list of concerns.

After the close, CV Theraputics
(
CVTX |
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Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
missed by 0.35. Kohl’s
(
KSS |
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PowerRating) beat by a penny, as did McData
(
MCDTA |
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News |
PowerRating).
Ingram Micro
(
IM |
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News |
PowerRating) beat by 0.05.

Strong sectors were:  Homebuilders  
(
$HGX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
+3.57%   Semis
(
$SOX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) +2.38%   Disk
Drives
(
$DDX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) +2.35% 

Weak sectors were:  Gold
(
$HUI.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
-1.51%   Internet
(
$ECM.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) -0.41% 

Dow +74.78 10,748.57
Nasdaq +20.56 2051.70
S&P 500 +9.39 1200.19

The dollar was +0.20 at
82.90

Crude Oil was +0.33 at
51.50

Gold was -0.70 to 433.60

ce=”Arial” size=”2″ face=”Arial”>Volume was 1.5 billion on the NYSE and 2
billion on the Nasdaq.

Market breadth was positive.

NYSE Issues
Advancing 2308 Up Vol 1079
Declining 1060 Down Vol 397
2.17 2.71
Nasdaq
Advancing 1905 Up Vol 1393
Declining 1217 Down Vol 609
1.56 2.28

Stocks in the News

Staples
(
SPLS |
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News |
PowerRating) met estimates, increased its dividend and
announced a 3:2 stock split.

JC Penney
(
JCP |
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Chart |
News |
PowerRating) beat by 0.05.

Limited
(
LTD |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) beat by 0.05; announced a $100 million stock
buy-back.

Brice Wightman