Google News! Plus, Earnings After The Close

Stocks fell
today with investors disappointed with earnings from several companies.

BellSouth
(
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rose after reporting earnings from continuation
operations of $939 million which beat the Street consensus by a penny. Revenue
was flat at $6.65 billion. ImClone
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plunged after Smith Barney
downgraded the stock to Hold and lowered its price target to $72. The main
reason is related to their belief of the different accounting methods used to
account for its Erbitux royalty obligations. American Express
(
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reported earnings of $876 million with revenue up at $7.258 billion.

This is a busy week for earnings. ExxonMobil
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is scheduled to
report on Thursday; Chevron Texaco
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reports on Tuesday. Mylan
Labs

(
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will acquire King Pharmaceuticals in a stock swap worth about
$4 billion.

Google said its IPO
would offer 24.6 million shares priced between $108 and $135/share, making the
deal worth as much as $3.3 billion with a market cap of 36.25 billion. The
company plans to list on the Nasdaq under the symbol “GOOG.” The company will be
coming in at 60 times earnings; Yahoo, by contrast, is trading at 110 times
earnings. The company will sell 14.1 million shares with insiders selling
another 10.5 million shares. After the offering, co-founders Sergey Brin and
Larry Page will retain about 16% each of Google voting power. Q2 profits for the
search engine company rose 24% for last quarter. The road show begins tonight in
New York.

After the close, Providian
(
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beat by $0.02 and upped Y04 guidance; Vertex
(
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missed
by $0.03, ex items and reaffirmed their outlook. Pitney Bowes
(
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beat by a penny; Silicon Labs
(
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beat by 0.05 but guided
revenues below consensus. Genesis Microchip
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beat by 0.02 but
guided lower; SonicWall
(
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missed by a penny and was light on
revenues.

Dow -0.30 9961.92
S&P 500 -2.13 1084.07
Nasdaq -10.07 1839.02

Strong today were: Insurance
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+0.85% Telecoms
(
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+0.57%, Healthcare
(
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+0.44%

Weak today were: Healthcare
Provider

(
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-2.69%, Amex Gold Bugs
(
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-2.52%,
 

The dollar
was -0.24 at 89.22

Gold was -0.10 at 391.60

Crude Oil was unch at
40.97

Volume was 1.4 billion
on the NYSE, and 1.6 billion on the Nasdaq.

Market breadth was negative

NYSE Issues
Advancing 1068 Up Vol 411
Declining 2185 Down Vol 980
Ratio 2.05 2.38
Nasdaq
Advancing 995 Up Vol 449
Declining 2116 Down Vol 1174
Ratio 2.12 2.61

Stocks in the news:

Tyson Foods
(
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said its
quarterly earnings doubled from a year ago but the full year forecast
disappointed the Street. TSN is trading at 19.05, down 0.90.

Even after a large charge related to its
Taxus stent, the net at Boston Scientific
(
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nearly tripled.
Boston Scientific posted earnings of
$313 million with revenue rising 71% to $1.46 billion. The company experienced
growth across all sectors.

Merck
(
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and Schering
Plough

(
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won FDA approval to sell a 2:1 cholesterol pill, Vytorin,
which was found to be as effective as Pfizer’s
(
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Lipitor. PFE is
trading at 31.48, down 0.82.

Brice Wightman

 

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