Coming Soon: Internet Search Fees?
Stocks
are are taking a breather Tuesday as the lack of economic news
forces many investors to look to Friday’s unemployment report
for guidance. The commodity markets — especially the metals — continue to be a
topic among floor traders. Yahoo
(
YHOO |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) said it would begin charging companies to add more web pages to its
search function. After downgrades by JP Morgan on Intel
(
INTC |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) and
AMD
(
AMD |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating), Schwab Soundview upgraded Micron
(
MU |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) on growth
of DRAM chips.
Banc of America, on seeing improvement in semiconductor prices and growth in the
handset market, has upgraded Texas Instruments
(
TXN |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) to a buy.
Disney
(
DIS |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) held an Eisner protest
meeting with Stanley Gold, seeking a 15%-20% no-confidence vote.
Tokyo’s Nikkei traded 0.8% higher for the fifth day in a row, thanks to a weak
yen and market optimism.
The dollar is firming, trading at a 10-week
high against the euro on strengthening unemployment numbers; traders
believe a rate cut by the ECB is imminent.
| Dow | -59.40 |
10619.59 |
| S&P 500 |
-3.47 | 1152.79 |
| Nasdaq | -6.02 | 2051.45 |
The day’s leading sectors are
Semis
(
SOX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) +0.49%, REITs
(
DJR.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) +0.44%, Natural
Gas
(
XNG.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) +0.44%, and Biotechs
(
BTK.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) +0.39%.
Weak today are Amex Gold
Bugs
(
HUI.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) -2.71%, and Gold and Silver
(
XAU.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) -2.74%,
No Economic news releases
today.
10-year Notes are -135
at 114 280
The dollar
is +1.34 at 88.96
Gold is -7.30 at 392.30
Crude Oil is -0.26 at
36.60
The euro
is -0.67 at 123.74
Volume is 671,000,000 on
the NYSE, and 945,000,000 on the Nasdaq.
Market breadth is negative.
| NYSE | Issues | |
| Advancing | 1436 | Up Vol 279 |
| Declining | 1689 | Down Vol 375 |
| Ratio | 1.17 | 1.30 |
| Nasdaq | ||
| Advancing | 1254 | Up Vol 422 |
| Declining | 1782 | Dow Vol 504 |
| Ratio | 1.43 | 1.19 |
Top Dow stocks are:
Intel [INTC|INTC],
+0.67% at 29.89, Altria
(
MO |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating), +0.66% at 58.56, Home Depot [HD|HD]
+0.62% at 37.06, and JP Morgan [JPM|JPM],
+0.55% at 41.71.
Stocks in the news:
Homebuilder Hovnanian Enterprises
(
HOV |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
reported earnings of $57.7 million on revenue of $775.2 million from a booming
housing market.
Search engine Mamma.com
(
MAMA |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) reported its first ever quarter in the black with sales jumping
127%. Earnings from continuing operations reached $799K or 9 cents a share with
whole year at 1 penny. MAMA doubled its market cap by 100% with shares doubling
in value.
BJ’s Wholesale
(
BJ |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
reported fourth-quarter earnings of $49.2 million, beating earnings by 2 cents
with revenue hitting $1.929 billion. Same-store sales rose by 7.5% and the
company expects its fiscal year 2004 earnings to be $1.62 a share.