M&A, Consumer Sentiment Boost Markets

  • May 18, 2007
  • Darren Wong

Stocks were higher this morning, on
major M&A news with Microsoft, and overall positive earnings
announcements from Thursday. The market is trading just off the
highs for the day. Traders are now focusing on the next major
milestone target, which is a new record closing high for the SPX
above 1523.

Crude oil futures are up about 0.6%.
Yesterday, crude shot up over 3% on speculation that summer demand
will exceed U.S. refinery and supply capacities. Today, those
sentiments continued, and oil continued to rise, also helping to
drive up a number of energy related stocks.

Bond prices continue to fall across
the board, as traders bet that the Fed will not be forced to cut
rates. Today, the U. of Michigan sentiment index came in stronger
than expected.

Today’s

PowerRatings Heat Map is starting to show some bearish sectors, which is to
be expected following the rally of the past few weeks. The two
most notable bearish Heat Map sectors are Drugs and Energy.


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Stocks in
Motion

Microsoft
(
MSFT |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) To Acquire Aquantive
For About $6 Bln In Cash (full
story). MSFT shares were down about 1%.

Autodesk
(
ADSK |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) Q1 Revenues Up 17%;
Shares Dip (full
story). ADSK was down fractionally.


Kohl’s
(
KSS |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) Stock Rises On Q1 Results (full
story). KSS was up about 0.6%.

For more stories as they happen, go to our
Breaking News section.

Market Snapshot

Dow

 +48.20 13,524.92

NASDAQ

 +5.90 2,545.28

S&P 500

 +5.30
1,518.05

NYSE NASDAQ

Volume

 1,339,537,000 955,318,000

Advances

 1632 1382

Declines

 1403 1460

Up Volume

 717 529

Down Volume

 494 355

New Highs

 196 95

New Lows

 24 68



Strongest/Weakest Sectors

Strongest Sectors

Weakest Sectors
Amex Oil Index (XOI) Nasdaq Transportation (TRANX)
Nasdaq Financial 100 (IXF) Morgan Stanley Healthcare (HMO)
Deutsche Bank Energy Index (DXE) Dow Jones Equity REIT Index (DJR)


Economic
News

U. of
Michigan consumer sentiment rose to 88.7, versus expectations of 86.2

Darren Wong

Associate Editor

darrenw@tradingmarkets.com