Credit Worries, Energy Sink Stocks

Stocks fell Friday, with the major indices making
new lows intraday for the week and the month. U.S. consumer sentiment
fell in August–the University of Michigan’s Consumer Sentiment Index was 
89.1 vs the 92.5 consensus. Major indices fell further after Greenspan said the
central bank is paying close attention to rising stock and home prices.
Homebuilders slumped on the news.

Novell
(
NOVL |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) beat by a penny; quarterly profit, however, fell on
higher tax and restructuring costs.
(Full
story)

Hewlett Packward
(
HPQ |
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Chart |
News |
PowerRating) said it would reserve an additional $4
billion for stock buybacks.
(Full
story)

Merck
(
MRK |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) said it may settle some of the 5,000 pending Vioxx
related lawsuits.

Pixar
(
PIXR |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) is being investigated by the SEC over heavy returns
of the film "The Incredibles."  PIXR cited the returns as the reason
the company missed Q2 estimates.

Petco
(
PETC |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) was in-line and guided lower.  The company was
downgraded to neutral at JP Morgan.
(Full
story)    

Correction: On August 24, I said Intuit
(
INTU |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
missed by 0.02. In fact, the company beat First Call estimates by 0.02.    

Weak sectors
were:   Disk Drives

(
DDX |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
-2.07%     Oil

(
OIX |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
-1.32%     Banks 

(
BKX |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) -1.25% 

Cardiac Science
(
DFIB |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) received permission to market its automatic
public access defibrillators in Japan.

Omnivision
(
OVTI |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) missed by 0.02.

Business Week reports AtheroGenics
(
AGIX |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) may be a buyout
candidate, according to John McCamant of the Medical Technology Stock Letter.

Renovis
(
RNVS |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) said Phase III trials of Ren 1654 did not meet primary
endpoints and that it is discontinuing development.
(Full
story)

Seagate
(
STX |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) was downgraded to equalweight at Morgan Stanley.

Brice Wightman