All Eyes On EBAY. Here’s What To Expect

Stocks are lower as traders balance benign inflation
data and strong economic numbers with mixed guidance and earnings. 

Pfizer
(
PFE |
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missed by a penny at 0.58; quarterly revenue rose 7%.

Yahoo
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YHOO |
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reported  0.13, beating by 0.02 on $1.08
billion in revenues (up 68%).

Motorola
(
MOT |
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beat by 0.04; revenues were up but margins were
less than expected at 33.6%.  

Advanced Micro Devices
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missed by 3 cents; revenue was $1.26
billion, in-line.

IBM beat by 0.05, reporting $1.81 on $27.7 billion in revenue. Revenue
rose 6.8% year/year and gross margins were 39.2%.

JP Morgan
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missed by 0.04.

December consumer prices fell 0.1%, led by lower gas prices. Jobless claims
fell 48,000 to 319,000 to the lowest level in 5 weeks and the largest decline in
5 years. The 4-week moving average fell 3,000 to 341,000. December housing
starts rose 10.9% to an annualized rate of 2 million units.

Homebuilders are strong. Mortgage rates have fallen to 5.64%,
Ryland

(
RYL |
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guided higher and Toll Brothers [TOL|TOL} target was
raised at Merrill Lynch

eBay
(
EBAY |
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will report after the close; the consensus estimate
is 0.34 and revenue of $519. Analysts estimate that 405 million items were
posted on eBay last quarter.

Tomorrow before the open, look for earnings from Citigroup (est.
$1.02), Reynolds & Reynolds (est. $0.26) and United Health (est.
$1.08).

Strong sectors are: Oil Services
(
OSX.X |
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+0.91%, Natural Gas
(
XNG.X |
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+0.29%, Healthcare Providers
(
HMO.X |
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+0.13%.

Weak sectors are: Airlines
(
XAL.X |
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-2.33%, Computer Tech
(
XCI.X |
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-1.36%, Semis
(
SOX.X |
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-1.16%.

 

Dow -44.35 10,584.23
S&P 500 -5.97 1190.01
Nasdaq -18.03 2088.01

The dollar is +0.06 at
83.42

Crude Oil is -0.38 at
48.10

Gold is +0.50 to 422.80

ce=”Arial” size=”2″ face=”Arial”>Volume is 682 million on the NYSE and
1.03 billion on the Nasdaq.

Market breadth is positive.

NYSE Issues
Advancing 1514 Up Vol 223
Declining 1659 Down Vol 394
1.09 1.76
Nasdaq
Advancing 1078 Up Vol 263
Declining 1847 Down Vol 712
1.71 2.70

Stocks in the News

General Motors
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GM |
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beat by 0.10, reporting 1.09 vs 0.91 estimate,
but profits were lower.

Southwest Airlines
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LUV |
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missed by 0.01, citing record high fuel
costs.

Rambus
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RMBS |
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missed by 0.02, citing high litigation costs.

Juniper
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beat by a penny; Q4 profit jumped four-fold.

Fannie Mae will cut its dividend in half, to 0.26.

Brice Wightman

 

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