Did You Trade This Stock On December 5? Nasdaq Ordered To Pay 2 Traders
Stocks
are lower after triple-digit gains on the Dow yesterday.
A judge in Manhattan has
ordered the Nasdaq to pay $3,000 each to two traders who filed in small claims
court for their Dec. 5 trades in Corinthian Colleges
(
COCO |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating).
Chemical giant Dupont
(
DD |
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PowerRating)
reported higher fourth-quarter earnings of $636 million, an increase of 180%
from the year-ago period. Sales rose 14% to $6.5 billion. For the next quarter,
the company expects to earn 70 cents per share.
Semiconductor Novellus
Systems
(
NVLS |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) reported earnings that more than tripled, with earnings
of $10.5 million on sales of $226.5 million. The company expects earnings to
reach 8 cents a share on sales of $245 million, but it lowered 2004 EPS to $1 on
lower-than-expected growth and lower operating margins.
Search engine Google was
given the green light for the launch of its widely anticipated IPO after passing
audits that certified compliance with the Sarbanes-Oxley law.
After the bell, Amazon
(
AMZN |
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Chart |
News |
PowerRating), Broadcom
(
BRCM |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating), and
Electronic Arts
(
ERTS |
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PowerRating) are expected to report earnings of $0.29, $0.16,
$1.20 per share, respectively.
Dow | -51.48 |
10651.36 |
S&P 500 |
-6.78 | 1148.60 |
Nasdaq | -27.59 |
2126.18 |
The day’s leading sectors are
Amex Gold Bugs
(
HUI.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) +3.80%, Gold and Silver
(
XAU.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
+3.29%, Airlines
(
XAL.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) +1.23%,
Chemicals
(
CEX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) +0.30%.
Weak today are Semis
(
SOX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
-3.50%, and Biotechs
(
BTK.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) -1.90%.
Economic news releases included
consumer confidence index levels at 96.8.
10-year Notes are +160
at 114 010
The dollar
is -1.06 at 86.43
Gold is +4.90 at 412.80
Crude Oil is +0.22 at
33.86
Volume is 760,000,000 on
the NYSE, and 1,020,000,000 on the Nasdaq.
Market breadth is negative.
NYSE | Issues | |
Advancing | 1331 | Up Vol 355 |
Declining | 1787 | Down Vol 386 |
Ratio | 1.31 | 1.09 |
Nasdaq | ||
Advancing | 1228 | Up Vol 307 |
Declining | 1860 | Down Vol 703 |
Ratio | 1.51 | 2.29 |
Top Dow stocks are:
McDonalds [MCD|MCD],
+0.79% at 25.48, Coca-Cola [KO|KO],
+0.56% at 50.44, 3M
(
MMM |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating), +0.58% at 82.97, and Wal-Mart [WMT|WMT],
+0.46% at 54.80.
Stocks in the news:
Lockheed Martin
(
LMT |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) showed earnings
of $344 million on net sales of $8.98 billion, well ahead of the $8.84 billion
consensus. LMT guided higher earnings of $34 billion but lower EPS of $2.45, due
to rising pension costs.
Shares of drug maker Merck
(
MRK |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) have
risen from a low of $40 to $47 over the last two months but the company reported
a 23% drop in profits due to job cuts and declining sales of popular drugs.
Earnings fell to $1.4 billion on revenues of $5.63 billion. Vioxx sales doubled
to $731 million while sales of Zocor fell 12%.
Publisher McGraw-Hill
(
MHP |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) reported
earnings of $159.9 million on revenues of $1.2 billion. MHP is up 4% for the
day.
ISP provider Earthlink
(
ELNK |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
reported fourth-quarter income of $10.7 million on revenues of $348.2 million.
Monthly subscriber churn increased by 0.5% to 4.1%.
bricew@tradingmarkets.com