Dow Edges Closer to 13,000 Mark

• April 24, 2007
• Darren Wong

Traders overlooked weak consumer confidence and
housing numbers and kept the rally alive by focusing on positive
big cap earnings.  The Dow closed up 35 points, only 45
points away from the 13,000 mark.  Major movers in the Dow
included IBM
(
IBM |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) and Honeywell
(
HON |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) with
gains of over 3%.

June crude futures pulled back
from highs to close down 2% at $64.58 a barrel. 
June gold futures fell 0.9% to $687.70.

The major European indices finished
lower across the board in Tuesday’s session.  Germany’s DAX
Index fell 0.9% to close at 7,270.32, France’s CAC 40 Index fell
0.5% to 5,886.03, and Britain’s FTSE 100 lost 0.8% to 6,429.50.

Today’s
PowerRatings
Heat
Map
continues to show slight weakness in several sectors- Energy,
Materials and Construction, and Manufacturing.  One of the
interesting sectors from today’s map is the Drug sector, which
continues to show a divergence between high PowerRatings stocks
and low PowerRatings stocks.  The best performing high PowerRating drug stock
of the day is La Jolla Pharmaceuticals
(
LJPC |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating), which
added 7%.  The worst
performing low PowerRating drug stock was ArQule Inc.
(
ARQL |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating),
which lost 1.4%. 

Click here for a free trial to our PowerRatings Heat Maps.

Stocks in Motion

AT&T ( T | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) Q1 Profit Doubles; Adj. EPS Tops Consensus; Revenues Climb 84% (full story).  T shares fell 1.7%. AK Steel ( AKS | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) First-quarter Profit Soars On Higher Shipments, Selling Prices; To Redeem Senior Notes (full story).  AKS shares added 4.2%. Lockheed Martin ( LMT | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) Q1 Profit Grows 17% On One-time Gains, Higher Sales; Lifts FY07 EPS, Sales Outlook (full story).  LMT shares fell 2.3%. Tellabs ( TLAB | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) Q1 Profit Falls On 12.2% Decline In Revenues; Gives Q2 Revenue Outlook (full story).  TLAB shares gained 3.2%. IBM ( IBM | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) Boosts Dividend, Share Buyback Fund; Now Sees 2007 Adj. EPS Growth Of 12% – 14% (full story).  IBM shares added 3.5%. Texas Instruments ( TXN | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) Q1 Earnings Fall Yet Top Estimates; Guides Q2 EPS Above Consensus (full story).  TXN shares soared 8%. Whirlpool ( WHR | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) Q1 Profit Drops 1%; EPS Falls 14% On Higher Shares; Top Line Rises 24%; Backs FY07 EPS Forecast (full story).  WHR shares jumped 14%. For more stories as they happen, go to our Breaking News section.

Market Snapshot

Dow +34.54 12,953.94 NASDAQ +0.87 2,524.54 S&P 500 -0.51 1,480.42   NYSE NASDAQ Volume 3,062,256,000 2,210,774,000 Advances 1385 1350 Declines 1845 1684 Up Volume 1342 1133 Down Volume 1484 978 New Highs 224 146 New Lows 24 73

Strongest/Weakest Sectors

Strongest Sectors Weakest Sectors CBOE Technology Index (TXX) Amex Securities Broker/Dealer Index (XBD) Amex Disk Drive Index (DDX) Morgan Stanley Healthcare Payors Index (HMO) Morgan Stanley High-Technology 35 Index (MSH) Nasdaq Other Finance Index (OFINX)

Economic News

Existing Home Sales 6.12 mln vs 6.45 mln consensus, -8.4% m/m Consumer Confidence 104.0 vs 105.0 consensus

Darren Wong

Associate Editor

darrenw@tradingmarkets.com