Nasdaq Leads Rally, Plus, Merger Monday!

  • March 7, 2005
  • Brice Wightman

Stocks are higher this mid-day.. Equities
are showing follow through from Friday’s rally. The Nasdaq composite, which was
the underperformer on Friday, is leading the charge today.  The index is
trading up over 1% and breaking above its 50 day moving average. Semiconductors
are flying high today as the SOX is higher by more than 2%.

Merger action is also help to boost stocks today.  Capital One Financial
(
COF |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) is buying the New Orleans based bank, Hibernia
(
HIB |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) in $5 billion
deal.  Capital One is expecting to pay 55% in stock and 45% in cash.
Europe’s largest defense is buying United Defense Industries for $3.97 billion
in cash and $218 million in assumed debt.

Strong sectors are:   Semiconductors
(
$SOX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) 2.50%  Networking  
(
$NWX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) +2.20% 
Internets
(
$INX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) +2.12%

Weak sectors are:    Energy
(
$DXE.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) -1.13%   Oil
(
$XOI.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) -1.13%  
Chemicals  
(
$CEX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
-0.23%   

Dow +31.55 10,972.10
Nasdaq +24.47 2095.08
S&P 500 +5.41 1227.53

The dollar is +0.27 at
82.80

Crude Oil is -0.60 at
53.18

Gold is +4.30 to 434.20

ce=”Arial” size=”2″ face=”Arial”>Volume is 712 million on the NYSE and
1.02 billion on the Nasdaq.

Market breadth is positive.

NYSE Issues
Advancing 1850 Up Vol 463
Declining 1290 Down Vol 243
1.43 1.90
Nasdaq
Advancing 1751 Up Vol 842
Declining 1272 Down Vol 182
1.37 4.62

Stocks in the News


Boeing ousted CEO Harry Stonecipher because of a relationship with a
female employee.

Research in Motion
(
RIMM |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) was downgraded at Piper

Qualcomm
(
QCOM |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)) said Q2 revenues would be lower. The stock is
trading down pre-open.

Cell Theraputics’
(
CTIC |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) lung cancer drug did not work better
than standard chemotherapy..

Cisco
(
CSCO |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) was the subject of a positive article in Barron’s.

Geron Corp.
(
GERN |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) said its HIV drug showed effectiveness.

Celgene
(
CELG |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) said its Revlimid showed promise.


Brice Wightman