GM Puts The Brakes On The Hummer — Here’s Why
Stocks are
higher Wednesday on light volume.Â
New home sales fell 6.4% to 1.134 million, the lowest rate since December. June
sales had a downward revision. Analysts are worried about rising inventory
levels, currently at 4 months. Lennar
(
LEN |
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PowerRating) is at 44.83, down0.64 and
KB Home
(
KBH |
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PowerRating) is at 67.65, down 1.18.
Durable goods orders for July rose 1.7%, better
than expected and the biggest jump since March.Â
General Motors
(
GM |
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PowerRating) has asked AM
General — builder of the Hummer — to cut back production in the wake of slower
sales, which are down 25% in 2004. The Hummer generated as much as $10,000
profit per vehicle for GM.
The American Petroleum Institute said that
crude inventories for the week of August 20 fell by 3.4 million barrels;
gasoline inventories for the same period rose by 1.5 million barrels.
The Stock Trader’s Almanac shows that in 6 of the last 7 years, the last
5 days of August have been down.
| Dow | +40.12 | 10138.90 |
| S&P 500 | +4.32 | 1100.52 |
| Nasdaq | +12.80 | 1849.52 |
Strong today are: Gold
(
XAU.X |
Quote |
Chart |
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PowerRating) +2.60%, Internet
(
GIN.X |
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PowerRating)
+1.30%, Semis
(
SOX.X |
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Chart |
News |
PowerRating) +1.08%.
Weak are: Airlines
(
XAL.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) -0.12%
10-year Notes are +065 at 112 200
The dollar
is -0.03 at 89.43
Gold is +2.90 at 407.70
Crude Oil is -0.66 at
44.55
Volume is 544 million on
the NYSE and 691 million on the Nasdaq.
Market breadth is positive.
| NYSE | Issues | |
| Advancing | 2072 | Up Vol 355 |
| Declining | 1123 | Down Vol 187 |
| Ratio | 1.84 | 1.89 |
| Nasdaq |
||
| Advancing | 1656 | Up Vol 490 |
| Declining | 1228 | Down Vol 124 |
| Ratio | 1.34 | 3.95 |
Stocks in the News
Boeing
(
BA |
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PowerRating) received a $7.35 billion order
from Singapore Airlines.
H&R Block
(
HRB |
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PowerRating) posted a loss for Q1.
Toll Brothers
(
TOL |
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PowerRating) beat estimates and guided higher.
OmniVision’s
(
OVTI |
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Chart |
News |
PowerRating) profit tripled, but
guided the current quarter lower. JP Morgan removed the stock from its focus
list, RBC lowered its price target to $13 from $18. OVTI is trading at 11.00,
down 0.57.
Williams Sonoma [WSM|WSM} beat by 0.04
DoubleClick
(
DCLK |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) is up pre-open. Three
formats of its DART Motif rich media banners and ads were accepted by
Microsoft’s MSN Network
Ditech Communications
(
DITC |
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Chart |
News |
PowerRating) swung to a quarterly profit. The stock
is trading up pre-open.
Brice Wightman