Lots Of Earnings Action You Need To Be Aware Of For Tomorrow’s Open
The Dow and
SPX gained while the Nasdaq fell slightly Wednesday.
The Dow made a 22-month high. Housing
starts rose by 1.7% to 2.08 million, the fastest rate since 1984. Merrill
Lynch
(
MER |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) recorded a record $1.2 billion profit for the fourth
quarter. Investment banking business and sales of stocks and bonds contributed
to the strong numbers. Net revenue for the quarter rose 17% to $4.9 billion. For
fiscal year 2003, net income came in at $4 billion on revenues of $20.2
billion. Lucent
(
LU |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) was in the black for the second straight quarter,
recording a $349 million profit and beating analyst consensus. Sales rose by 9%
to $2.26 billion, but the company did not raise its 2004 outlook. Seagate
(
STX |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) warned that it might miss third-quarter and full-year estimates
because of high inventories and lower profit margins.
| Dow | +94.96 |
10623.62 |
| S&P 500 |
+8.85 | 1147.62 |
| Nasdaq | -5.53 |
2142.45 |
The day’s leading sectors were
Biotech
(
BTK.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) +2.12%, Airlines
(
XAL.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) +2.12%, Utility
(
UTY.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
+01.78%, Insurance
(
IUX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
+0.72%, and Healthcare
(
XBD.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) +1.63%.
Weak today were Disk Drives
(
DDX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) -5.06%, and Hardware
(
GHA.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) -3.31%.
Economic news releases today
included housing starts rising to 2.088 million, and building permits that rose
to 1.924.
10-year Notes were +050
at 114 06
The dollar
was -0.33 at 86.38
Gold was -1.99 at 410.59
Crude Oil was -0.24 at
34.58
Volume was
1,757,546,000 on
the NYSE, and 2,404,232,000 on the Nasdaq.
Market breadth was positive.
| NYSE | Issues | |
| Advancing | 2071 | Up Vol 1026 |
| Declining | 1218 | Down Vol 721 |
| Ratio | 1.70 | 1.42 |
| Nasdaq | ||
| Advancing | 1517 | Up Vol 838 |
| Declining | 1688 | Down Vol 1516 |
| Ratio | 1.11 | 3.01 |
Stocks
in the news:
After the close, eBay
(
EBAY |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) reported
pro forma earnings of .24 vs .22 (.21 vs .22 GAAP) and guided higher for ’04.
Net income was +61% and revenue rose 56%. The company raised 2004 revenue
targets to $3 billlion. Qualcomm
(
QCOM |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) came in with .51 vs. .48 and
raised ’04 EPS to 1.56 – 1.61. Starbucks
(
SBUX |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) reported .27 vs. .26
on $1.3B vs $1.25B revenue and said it will open 1300 new stores this year.
Siebel
(
SEBL |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) was in-line as revenues fell year/year. Symantec
(
SYMC |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) beat by .05, Sandisk
(
SNDK |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) is trading down 9% in
after market trading after reporting a double of sales and announcing a 2:1
stock split. Intel
(
INTC |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) said it would double its stock dividend to
.04 per quarter. Computer Associates
(
CA |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) beat by a penny.
JP Morgan
(
JPM |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) posted strong profits
with higher activity in its investment banking unit and fewer bad loans, earning
$1.86 billion on revenue of $7.9 billion.
Charter One Financial
(
CF |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) recorded
fourth-quarter earnings of $158.2 million. The company plans to prepay $2.25
billion in Federal Home Loan Bank advances in January. It will also issue
dividends of $0.26 per share.
Motorola
(
MOT |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) reported earnings of
$489 million for the quarter on sales of $8 billion. It also received a couple
of upgrades from brokerage houses such as Wells Fargo, Blaylock &
Partners. Analysts do not expect last quarter’s shipment delays to recur, and
forecast higher cell phone sales for the next quarter.
Harley-Davidson
(
HDI |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) reported a 22%
fourth-quarter increase to $182 million on revenue of $1.16 billion. A total of
77,000 motorcycles were shipped for the quarter, up 17%. The company reiterated
its 2004 target of 317,000 units.
bricew@tradingmarkets.com