Earnings Season Begins – Here’s What Alcoa Said After The Close

October 7, 2003
Brice Wightman

Stocks were
higher Tuesday, with the
major indices making their fifth straight day of gains, and the Dow up almost
300 points over the last five sessions. A broad based rally began around 1:30
ET, with rotation out of pharmaceuticals and into financials and technology.
Volume was light, but market internals strong, with more new highs than new
lows. Several groups made new highs, including the Small Cap Index, the Mid Cap
Index, the brokers, and the Airline Index.

All three major indices closed within 1% of their Sept. 19 highs. Pepsico
(
PEP |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) kicked off the
third-quarter earnings season today as the beverage giant reported a 13% rise in
quarterly earnings. After the close today, Alcoa
(
AA |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) is scheduled to report
and is trading down by 1.3%. Bonds are reversing yesterday’s gains and are lower
for the last three out of four sessions. Meanwhile, gold continues to rebound
after last week’s sell off; its next level of resistance comes in at around the
$380 level.

No economic releases today.

The 10-year U.S. Note
was -230 at 112 080.

The dollar was -0.50 at
91.91.

Gold was +4.20 at 377.80.

Crude Oil was -0.04 at
30.41.

Volume was
1,283,478,000 on
the NYSE, and 1,819,673,000 on the Nasdaq.

Market breadth was positive,
with NYSE advancing issues over declining issues by 1.50 and up over down volume
by 1.84; Nasdaq advancing issues over declining issues at 1.61, and up volume
over down volume at 2.58.

Top Dow stocks were:

Stocks in the news:

Adult higher education provider
Apollo Group
(
APOL |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) lost 1.34% despite better-than-expected
quarterly results. Due to strong enrollment as well as the opening of four new
campuses, the company reported fourth-quarter earnings of 37 cents a share
compared to 26 cents in the year-ago quarter. Analysts had been looking for 34
cents a share. Looking ahead, the company sees fiscal 2004 earnings of $1.64 or
just a penny shy of consensus estimates.

Chip maker Altera
(
ALTR |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
rose 7% after UBS upgraded the stock from “neutral” to “buy”. The firm
cited that the recent 25% decline since its Sept. 9 high “has created a buying
opportunity”.

Discount airliner JetBlue

(
JBLU |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) was up fractionally after the company announced at 3-for-2 stock
split. The split will take place on Nov. 20 to shareholders of record on Nov.
10. In a press release, JetBlue CEO, David Neeleman, said, “The three-for-two
split reflects our confidence in the company’s future growth prospects”.

Dow component McDonalds
(
MCD |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) was higher by 2.57% after Smith Barney upgraded the world’s largest fastfood
chain from “neutral” to “buy”. Smith Barney also raised its price target from
$24 to $30.

If you have any comments or questions, please
feel free to email me.

Brice
Wightman

bricew@tradingmarkets.com

Earnings Season Begins – Here’s What Alcoa Said After The Close

BUY THE FEAR, SELL THE GREED

Quick Links

Company Info

Contact

Company Resources