Here’s What Novellus Reported After The Close


Stocks rose as investors begin banking that first-quarter earnings will meet
or exceed expectations
. In
one of the busiest weeks of the quarterly reporting
season
, 70
companies will report, including
(
JNJ |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
,
(
MER |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
,
(
INTC |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
,
(
APPL |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
,
(
AMD |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
and
(
EMC |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
.

Gasoline hit another record
high, to a national average of $1.786/gallon. The U.S. Energy Information
Administration said that this is up 0.19 from this time last year.

Bank of America
upgraded Comcast
(
CMCSA |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
to “buy” and raised its price target to
$41 on favorable industry fundamentals. The banker believes Comcast will walk
away from Disney’s
(
DIS |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
proposed acquisition and excel without
Disney.

Gannett
(
GCI |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)

reported earnings of $274.4 million on strong ad growth, with revenue rising 11%
to $1.73 billion. Its TV division showed a 7% increase in revenue and its
newspaper division reported a 12% increase in revenue. Abbott Laboratories
(
ABT |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
traded lower after a downgrade from JP Morgan due to increased concern
over generic competition on some of its products.

After the close, Novellus
(
NVLS |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
reported 0.12 vs a 0.10 estimate, ex-items, beating estimates. Net
was $16.17 million on $263 million revenues that rose 10% year/year. The stock
traded higher after the close.

Dow
+73.53

10515.56
S&P 500
+5.90
1145.22
Nasdaq
+12.60

2065.48

The day’s leading sectors were
Oil Services

(
OSX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
+2.37%, Energy
(
DXE.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
+2.00%,
Oil Index

(
XOI.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
+1.72%, and Natural Gas
(
XNG.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
+1.14%.

Weak today were REITs
(
DJR.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)

-4.79%, and Amex Gold Bugs
(
HUI.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
-1.08%.

10-year Notes were -085 at
112 130

The dollar
was -0.09 at 88.95

Gold was -1.01 at 419.48

Crude oil was +0.71 at
37.84

Volume was
1,102,178,000 on
the NYSE, and
1,500,449,000 on the Nasdaq.

Market breadth was positive.

NYSE Issues
Advancing
1669 Up Vol
610
Declining 1621 Down Vol
482
Ratio
1.02

1.26
Nasdaq
Advancing
1835 Up Vol
1039
Declining
1356 Down Vol
420
Ratio
1.35

2.47

Stocks in the news:

Advanced Micro Devices
(
AMD |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)

has settled a microprocessor patent suit with Intergraph. AMD will pay
Intergraph a maximum of $25 million. JMP Securities also raised its estimates,
citing better margins.

Entergy
(
ETR |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
lowered its
first-quarter earnings estimates to 85 cents a share, citing lower profits from
its energy marketing and trading partnership.

DuPont
(
DD |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
will cut
3,500 jobs–representing 6% of its workforce–as part of a previously announced
plan to reduce costs by $900 million.

Microsoft
(
MSFT |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
has settled
InterTrust’s patent suit over anti-piracy technology for digital music and
movies for $440 million.

Brice Wightman

bricew@tradingmarkets.com