Here’s How The Quarter Is Shaping Up
Stocks
were lower Monday with technology shares hit the hardest.
The Nasdaq — which briefly dipped below the 2000 mark
intraday — is down 7% from 2 1/2 year highs made in January, and is diverging
from the broader based S&P 500. The
US Defense Department is canceling the multibillion-dollar RAH-66 Comanche
helicopter program being developed by United Technologies
(
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Boeing
(
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PowerRating). Intel
(
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and 2002 tax returns will not have a material adverse effect on the company.
Citigroup
(
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PowerRating) will acquire South Korea’s sixth-largest bank, KorAm Bank
(
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PowerRating) for $2.7 billion in cash. With its 36.6% stake in KorAm, Citigroup
will become the first foreign bank to buy a South Korean bank. The offer
represents a 6.7% premium over KORMY’s last 30 trading days. Qualcomm
(
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PowerRating)
raised its earnings forecast on strong demand for wireless chip technology. The
chip maker now expects to sell 37 million handsets instead of 32 million, with
earnings of 48 cents per share on revenue of $1.24 billion.
With earnings season almost over,
Thompson Financial said this year’s EPS are 28% higher than last year’s; next
quarter’s EPS is seen 17% higher than previously anticipated.
Fed Chairman Alan
Greenspan said US consumers are generally in good financial shape, able to carry
more debt comfortably because of rising home prices. NYSE CEO John Thain
said that former NYSE Chairman Richard Grasso should return a significant amount
of his excessive compensation. The NYSE has no plans to sue Mr. Grasso.
After the close, Zoran
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missed by 0.05 ex items, reporting 0.03/share for Q4. LaBranche was cut
to junk rating at Moody’s. Novell
(
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PowerRating) was in-line at 0.03 but
revenue was light at $267 million vs $270 estimate. Agile Software
(
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PowerRating) beat by a penny, ex items. Tuesday morning, look for earnings from
Federated
(
FD |
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PowerRating), Home Depot
(
HD |
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(
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PowerRating).
| Dow | -9.41 |
10609.62 |
| S&P 500 |
-3.12 | 1140.99 |
| Nasdaq | -30.41 |
2007.52 |
The day’s leading sectors were
Oil
(
OIX.X |
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PowerRating) +0.68%, Banks
(
BKX.X |
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PowerRating) +0.18%,
Biotechs
(
BTK.X |
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PowerRating) +0.11%, and Energy
(
DXE.X |
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PowerRating) +0.18%.
Weak today were Disk Drives
(
DDX.X |
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Chart |
News |
PowerRating) -3.26%, Internet
(
GIN.X |
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PowerRating) -3.19% and Semis
(
SOX.X |
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-2.74%.
10-year Notes were +45 at
114 195.
The dollar
was -0.27 at 86.97.
Gold was +0.30 at
398.40.
Crude oil was +0.06 at
34.35.
Volume was
1,382,222,000 on
the NYSE, and 1,941,755,000 on the Nasdaq.
Market breadth was negative.
| NYSE | Issues | |
| Advancing | 1186 | Up Vol 400 |
| Declining | 2103 | Down Vol 935 |
| Ratio | 1.77 | 2.33 |
| Nasdaq | ||
| Advancing | 907 | Up Vol 363 |
| Declining | 2302 | Dow Vol 1553 |
| Ratio | 2.53 | 4.27 |
Stocks in the news:
Leather goods retailer Coach
(
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PowerRating)
raised its fiscal 2004 earnings forecast on stronger-than-expected Spring sales.
It expects sales to reach $300 million with earnings around 26 cents. Full year
earnings are expected to reach $1.24 a share on $1.3 billion of revenue.
Retailer Lowe’s
(
LOW |
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PowerRating) reported a
28% rise in net income with revenue also up 20%. Earnings came in at 51 cents a
share, 2 cents above consensus with revenue of $7.25 billion. Same-store sales
rose 7.3%, lower than the previous quarter’s +12.4%.
Utility TXU
(
TXU |
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PowerRating) replaced Eric
Nye with John Wilder as CEO and president until at least May 2005. Prudential
Securities upgraded the stock before the announcement.