Can Viagra Use Make You Blind? Plus, If You Fly Northwest, You Should Know This…

Stocks are lower in light pre-holiday trading.

Personal income for April rose 0.7%, in-line. Personal spending rose 0.6%,
slightly less than expected. Year over year, the core PCE rose +1.6%.

TiVo
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beat by 0.10.

Computer Associates
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CA |
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was in-line, ex-items. The company will
restate earnings. Legg Mason downgraded the stock to ‘hold from ‘buy.’

Tech Data
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missed by 0.04 and guided lower.

Ford
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F |
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says sales in China should rise 50% this year.

Merrill Lynch said steel stocks are attractive, especially Nucor
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and US Steel
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X |
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. Separately, Merrill upgraded LSI Logic
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.

Can Viagra use make you blind?  The FDA has
received 50 reports, mainly from men who are diabetic and have heart disease.
The Pfizer
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drug has been taken by 23 million men and accounts
for 3% of the company’s revenues. Pfizer said there is no evidence that using
the drug causes the rare blindness events. PFE is down over 2% and is dragging
the Dow down.

Thirty-one million Americans will hit the road this weekend; the American
Automobile Association
reports that gas prices are 6 cents higher than this
time last year.

Northwest Airlines has pulled the pretzels on all its flights!

Strong sectors are:  Gold  
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$XAU.X |
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+3.33%   Airlines
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$XAL.X |
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+0.48%    
Natural Gas

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$XNG.X |
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+0.64%     

Weak sectors are:     Semis
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$SOX.X |
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-1.25%   
Software

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$GO.X |
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-0.45%    Biotech
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$BTK.X |
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-0.42%  

Dow -6.50 10,531.10
Nasdaq -1.06 2070.18
S&P 500 -0.71 1196.91

The dollar is -0.21 at
86.64

Crude Oil is +0.34 at
51.35

Gold is +1.80 at 419.60

ce=”Arial” size=”2″ face=”Arial”>Volume is 608 million on the NYSE and
595 million on the Nasdaq.

Market breadth is mixed.

NYSE Issues
Advancing 1803 Up Vol 297
Declining 1193 Down Vol 231
1.51 1.28
Nasdaq
Advancing 1334 Up Vol 268
Declining 1433 Down Vol 284
1.07 1.05

Stocks in the News

Biovail
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BVF |
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received tentative FDA approval for sleep disorder
tablet Zolpidem.

Ashworth
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ASHW |
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missed by 0.06.

Ditech
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DITC |
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warned for Q1; the company received several
downgrades today.

Delphi
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DPH |
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was downgraded at Calyon, to ‘sell.’  Visteon
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VC |
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was upgraded to ‘buy.’

The FDA OK’d Abbot’s
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ABT |
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Zemplar tablets.

CIBC upped Four Seasons
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FS |
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to ‘outperform.’

Dreamworks’
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Madagascar is getting poor reviews.

Chico’s
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Q1 profits were up strong.

Brice Wightman

 

 

 

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