Internet Stocks Hurt On Downgrades

  • February 24, 2005
  • Brice Wightman

Stocks are flat after a
lower opening.  The market
rallied on the news that oil inventories grew, forcing oil prices down. The
Energy Department said that inventories rose by 600,000 barrels and gas
inventories rose by 1.8 million barrels.

Durable goods for January fell 0.09, more than
expected. Jobless claims for the week of 1/19 rose 9,000 to 312,000; the 4-week
moving average is now 308,750. Continuing claims were 2.65 million.

Search engine shares are lower across the board.
Google
(
GOOG |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) and Yahoo
(
YHOO |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) were cut at RBC. A
PriceWaterhouseCoopers study said that online ad revenue growth slowed in Q4. 
GOOG and YHOO are both down about 4%. ASKJ is down over 7%.

Time Warner
(
TWX |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) unit AOL is
launching a search engine.

FindWhat
(
FWHT |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) posted flat earnings which missed estimate and
guided lower for Q1.

Boeing
(
BA |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) received a $4 billion order from Ryanair..

Strong sectors were:  Transports  
(
$TRANX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
+0.60%   Utilities
(
$UTY.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) +0.50%  Airlines
(
$XAL.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
+0.43% 

Weak sectors were:  Internet
(
$ECM.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) -2.27% 
 Biotech
(
$BTK.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) -0.82%   Gold
(
$HUI.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
-1.51%

Dow -3.62 10,670.17
Nasdaq -3.62 2027.63
S&P 500 -0.05 1190.75

The dollar is +0.32 at
83

Crude Oil is +0.18 at
51.35

Gold is -0.70 to 433.60

ce=”Arial” size=”2″ face=”Arial”>Volume is 611 million on the NYSE and
897 million on the Nasdaq.

Market breadth is mixed.

NYSE Issues
Advancing 1642 Up Vol 263
Declining 1524 Down Vol 286
1.07 1.08
Nasdaq
Advancing 1182 Up Vol 361
Declining 1709 Down Vol 476
1.44 1.31

Stocks in the News

Staples
(
SPLS |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) met estimates, increased its dividend and
announced a 3:2 stock split.

JC Penney
(
JCP |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) beat by 0.05.

Limited
(
LTD |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) beat by 0.05; announced a $100 million stock
buy-back

Brice Wightman