Good Looking Breakout To New Highs For This Stock
Stocks
are lower in a relatively quiet session. The
indices made a high at 10:30 AM and have pulled back since then.
Rumors abound of a merger between pharmaceutical
companies Aventis
(
AVE |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) and Sanofi-Synthelabo. If consummated,
it would create the third largest drug company in the world. Aventis has hired
three major investment banks to defend itself from the hostile takeover.Â
Schlumberger
(
SLB |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) gained 5% after reporting a higher-than-expected
quarterly profit on increased oil and natural gas drilling activity. Net income
rose to $177 million on revenues of $3.67 billion. Revenue for North America
rose 19%, and in Latin America, up 15%. SLB broke out to new 52-week highs.
Software giant Microsoft
(
MSFT |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) reported a 17% drop in net earnings
for the second quarter as it earned $1.55 billion on increased revenues of
$10.15 billion.  Halliburton
(
HAL |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) slipped after it told the Pentagon
that two employees took up to $6 million in kickbacks.
| Dow | -38.32 |
10584.36 |
| S&P 500 |
-0.51 | 1143.93 |
| Nasdaq | -2.96 | 2116.05 |
The day’s leading sectors are
Oil Services
(
OSX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) +4.90%, Energy
(
DXE.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) +1.69%,
Natural Gas
(
XNG.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) +1.42%,
Software
(
GSO.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) +0.48%.
Weak today are Chemicals
(
DDX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) -0.97%, and Semis
(
SOX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) -0.95%.
No Economic news
releases today.
10-year Notes are -175
at 114 065
Dollar is +0.73 at 86.82
Gold is -2.20 at 409.00
Crude Oil is -0.17 at
34.13
Volume is 771,000,000 on
the NYSE, and 1,280,000,000 on the Nasdaq.
Market breadth is Positive.
| NYSEÂ | Issues | Â |
| Advancing | 1756 | Up Vol      408 |
| Declining | 1372 | Down Vol  312 |
| Ratio | 1.28 | 1.31 |
| Nasdaq |  |  |
| Advancing | 1635 | Up Vol     632 |
| Declining | 1422 | Down Vol  561 |
| Ratio | 1.14 | 1.13 |
Top Dow stocks are:
Microsoft [MSFT|MSFT],
+1.57%Â at 28.45, WalMart [WMT|WMT],
+1.63% at 54.04, Coca Coca
(
KO |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating), +0.85% at49.77, Altria [MO|MO],
+0.81% at 54.40.
Stocks in the news:
Northwest Airlines
(
NWAC |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) reported a
net loss of $1.49 a share, excluding gains on sale of assets and currency
exchange. Revenue rose to $2.41 billion, with strength in passenger traffic.
Fortune Brands
(
FO |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) reported
fourth-quarter earnings of $156 million on sales of $1.66 billion, a 15.7%
increase from the previous year. Fortune expects double-digit earnings growth
in the first quarter and for the full year.Â
Vitesse Semiconductor
(
VTSS |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) rose 8%
after posting a much smaller loss of $8 million compared to its $11 million loss
a year ago. The communications microchip maker’s revenue rose to $50.3
million.Â
Viseton
(
VC |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) dropped 5% after reporting
a larger fourth-quarter loss of $863 million. Revenue came in at $4.5 billion,
$84 million lower than the previous year, but beat analysts’ forecasts of $4.39
billion. Visteon expects income to be about 10 cents a share for the next
quarter.
Scientific Atlanta
(
SFA |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) rose 10%
after reporting a 70% increase in net income that came in at $41.1 million on
sales of $416.6 million. Â
 bricew@tradingmarkets.com