Big Trading SNAFU For This Nasdaq Stock
Stocks traded lower Friday. US
unemployment rate fell to 5.9%, down from 6% the prior month. Non-farm payroll
grew by 57,000, much lower than the expected gain of 150,000. The dollar is
traded lower on the disappointing news, with the Euro making another record high
to the dollar. Intel
(
INTC |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) reported strong demand for its
microprocessors, and predicted fourth-quarter revenue would be at the high end
of its previous forecast. Intel also warned of a $600 million charge related to
its wireless communication and computing group. Albertson’s
(
ABS |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
reported a 51% drop in earnings for the third-quarter due to labor disputes in
Southern California. Sales rose by 1.6% to $8.8 billion.
The Nasdaq halted
trading temporarily in Corinthian Colleges
(
COCO |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) due to
extraordinary trading activity and cancelled all trades in COCO between 10:46 AM
and 10:58 AM ET. The company said it knew of no events to account for the
sell-off. The broken trades angered some traders, who maintain that it was a
systems problem — not a trading halt — that caused the problem. There
may be a formal SEC investigation into the halt. It appears to be a bit of a
mess; this story is not over.
For the week, the Dow gained 0.8%, the Nasdaq
+0.9%. Natural gas was the big winner this week – up +25% – as a cold snap hit
the Northeast. Coal stocks also moved up, as did oil exploration stocks. The Oil
Index (OIX) hit a 52-week high. Airlines were down 11% for the week, and retail
lost 3.8%.
| Dow | -68.14 | 9862.68 |
| S&P 500 | -8.22 | 1061.50 |
| Nasdaq | -30.98 | 1937.82 |
The day’s leading sectors were
Amex Gold Bugs
(
HUI.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) +2.82%, Gold and Silver [XAU.X|XAU.X]
+1.83%, Oil Services
(
OSX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) +2.15%, Utility
(
$UTY.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating),
+0.22%.
Weak today were Airlines
[XAL.X|XAL.X] -4.10%, Semis [SOX.X|SOX.X]
-3.19%.
Economic news releases included
hourly earnings, up 0.1%, nonfarm payrolls, up by 57,000, and an unemployment
rate of 5.9%.
The dollar
was -0.49 at 89.11.
Gold was +3.20 at
406.75.
Crude Oil was -0.59 at
30.73.
Volume was
1,228,580,000 on
the NYSE, and 1,646,359,000 on the Nasdaq.
Market breadth was negative.
| NYSE | Issues | |
| Advancing | 1441 | Up Vol 359 |
| Declining | 1783 | Down Vol 773 |
| Ratio | 1.23 | 2.15 |
| Nasdaq | ||
| Advancing | 1080 | Up Vol 328 |
| Declining | 2063 | Down Vol 1262 |
| Ratio | 1.91 | 3.84 |
Stocks in the news:
Caterpillar
(
CAT |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
was upgraded by Smith Barney on expectations of improvements in the company’s
power generation, mining equipment and heavy construction equipment
divisions. Analyst Raso expects mining equipment sales to rise 15%-20% in 2004
and full-year earnings to reach $4.58 per share.
JetBlue
(
JBLU |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) shed
17% as it warned investors of lower fourth-quarter operating margins from rising
capacity in the airline industry. Bear Sterns reduced its estimates for JBLU to
15 cents a share, and Lehman Brothers downgraded the company.
The FDA approved Johnson &
Johnson’s
(
JNJ |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) Risperdal. Last year, worldwide sales of the
schizophrenia drug reached $2.15 billion.
Cosmetic manufacturer
Elizabeth Arden
(
RDEN |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) reported higher sales of $321.3 million for the
last quarter, with net income falling to $19.3 million.
bricew@tradingmarkets.com