All Eyes On Fed Minutes
Stocks are lower ahead of the May 3 FOMC minutes,
scheduled to be released at 2 PM ET.
Al Qaeda said that Al Zarqawi was wounded; the news lifted the markets
slightly shortly after 11 AM. The have been recent rumors to this effect, which
is why the market didn’t react even more strongly to the upside.
Existing home sales rose to a seasonally adjusted record of 7.18 million
units in April, higher than the 6.9 million consensus.
Genentech (DNA)
said that Phase III data showed that its drug Lucentis maintained or
improved vision in patients with macular degeneration.
Eyetech Pharmaceuticals
(
EYET |
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PowerRating) may be negatively impacted from
the Genentech news. The stock is down 43%.
Astrazeneca’s
(
AZN |
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according to the American Heart Association.
The Financial Times reports that the US has told China to revalue its
currency by 10% to avoid protectionist legislation.
Google
(
GOOG |
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PowerRating) Larry Page and Sergey Brin have been selling
stock–but their net worth is still over $8 billion each.
Daimler Chrysler will build Mercedes in Russia. Volkswagen has
built 100 million cars, only 1 of 4 car manufacturers ever to do so.
REITs are at historic highs; Merrill Lynch downgraded the group.
Strong sectors are:Â Â Â Gold
(
$XAU.X |
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PowerRating) +1.37%Â Â Â
Biotech
(
$BTK.X |
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PowerRating) +0.58%Â Semis
(
$SOX.X |
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PowerRating)
+0.41%Â Â Â Â Â
Weak sectors are:Â Â BrokersÂ
(
$XBD.X |
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PowerRating)
-1.09%Â Â Airlines Â
(
$XAL.X |
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PowerRating)
-0.91%Â Â Â Â Â Â Retail
(
$RLX.X |
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PowerRating) -0.50%
| Dow | -34.14 | 10,489.42 |
| Nasdaq | -1.28 | 2055.37 |
| S&P 500 | -2.23 | 1191.63 |
The dollar is -0.01 at
86.39
Crude Oil is +0.14 at
49.30
Gold is +0.80 at 417.40
683 million on the Nasdaq.
Market breadth is negative.
| NYSE | Issues | |
| Advancing | 1398 | Up Vol 252 |
| Declining | 1651 | Down Vol 294 |
| 1.18 | 1.16 | |
| Nasdaq |
||
| Advancing | 1306 | Up Vol 416 |
| Declining | 1467 | Down Vol 205 |
| 1.12 | 2.02 |
Stocks in the News
Williams Sonoma
(
WSM |
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PowerRating) beat by 0.03. Q1 earnings rose 22%.
Dillard’s
(
DDS |
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PowerRating) missed by 0.04.
First Albany started TiVo
(
TIVO |
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PowerRating) with a buy.
The New York Times reports Guidant
(
GDT |
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PowerRating) knew of flaws with
its defibrillators
Brice Wightman
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