Greenspan Speaks, Plus, $19 Million Contract For This Small Company
Stocks
were lower Tuesday as the lack of economic news
forces many investors to look to Friday’s unemployment report
for guidance. Today’s selloff was hastened by a Greenspan speech that touched on
possible interest rate increases. The Fed Chairman said that rates would
eventually have to rise. The commodity markets — especially the metals — continue to be a
topic among floor traders. Yahoo
(
YHOO |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) said it would begin charging companies to add more web pages to its
search function. After downgrades by JP Morgan on Intel
(
INTC |
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News |
PowerRating) and
AMD
(
AMD |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating), Schwab Soundview upgraded Micron
(
MU |
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Chart |
News |
PowerRating) on growth
of DRAM chips.
Banc of America, on seeing improvement in semiconductor prices and growth in the
handset market, has upgraded Texas Instruments
(
TXN |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) to a buy.
Disney
(
DIS |
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Chart |
News |
PowerRating) held an Eisner protest
meeting with Stanley Gold, seeking a 15%-20% no-confidence vote.
Tokyo’s Nikkei traded 0.8% higher for the fifth day in a row, thanks to a weak
yen and market optimism.
The dollar firmed, trading at a 10-week
high against the euro on strengthening unemployment numbers; traders
believe a rate cut by the ECB is imminent.
After the
close, Lennar
(
LEN |
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Chart |
News |
PowerRating) announced that homes sales in Q1 rose 30%.
Biogen Idec
(
BIIB |
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Chart |
News |
PowerRating) missed by 0.08, ex-items but beat on revenues and
reaffirmed long-term growth. SeaChange
(
SEAC |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) beat by 0.02 with
revenues in-line. Isis Pharmaceutical
(
ISIS |
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Chart |
News |
PowerRating) received a $19.5
million government contract to further the development of its TIGER biosensor
which identifies infectious agents in
biological attacks.
Pall Corp.
(
PLL |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) missed by 0.02.
| Dow | -86.66 |
10591.48 |
| S&P 500 |
-6.87 | 1149.10 |
| Nasdaq | -18.15 |
2039.65 |
The day’s leading sectors were
Oil Services
(
OSX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) +0.49% and Biotechs
(
BTK.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) +0.03%.
Weak today were Amex Gold
Bugs
(
HUI.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) -2.89%, and Gold and Silver
(
XAU.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) -3.20%,
and Airlines
(
XAL.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) -2.87%.
No Economic news releases
today.
10-year Notes were -130
at 114 285
The dollar
was +1.38 at 88.90
Gold was -6.92 at 393.05
Crude Oil was -0.21 at
36.66
Volume was
1,479,401,000 on
the NYSE, and 1,877,357,000 on the Nasdaq.
Market breadth was negative.
| NYSE | Issues | |
| Advancing | 1436 | Up Vol 532 |
| Declining | 1852 | Down Vol 931 |
| Ratio | 1.28 | 1.75 |
| Nasdaq | ||
| Advancing | 1222 | Up Vol 593 |
| Declining | 1957 | Dow Vol 1277 |
| Ratio | 1.60 | 2.15 |
Stocks in the news:
Homebuilder Hovnanian Enterprises
(
HOV |
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Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
reported earnings of $57.7 million on revenue of $775.2 million from a booming
housing market.
Search engine Mamma.com
(
MAMA |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) reported its first ever quarter in the black with sales jumping
127%. Earnings from continuing operations reached $799K or 9 cents a share with
whole year at 1 penny. MAMA doubled its market cap by 100% with shares doubling
in value.
BJ’s Wholesale
(
BJ |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
reported fourth-quarter earnings of $49.2 million, beating earnings by 2 cents
with revenue hitting $1.929 billion. Same-store sales rose by 7.5% and the
company expects its fiscal year 2004 earnings to be $1.62 a share.