New Home Sales Data Looks Bleak

• March 26, 2007
• Darren Wong

U.S. stocks rebound after a harsh
morning selloff that took the Dow down almost 100 points. 
The selloff was caused by a New Home Sales Report that came in
lower than expected marking a 7-year low.  Some of the
hardest hit homebuilders included Lennar
(
LEN |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) and
KB Homes
(
KBH |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating), both closed lower by over 2%.

May Crude futures climbed to a
2-week high in today’s session.  Crude gained $0.63 to close
at $62.91 and reached an intraday high of $63.60. 
Gold futures for April delivery rose 1% to $663.90 an ounce.

Around Europe, the U.K.’s
FTSE 100 index fell 0.75% to 6,291.90, while France’s CAC 40 index
dropped 1.04% to 5,576.30 and Germany’s DAX index slipped 1.02% to
6,828.82.

Our

Daily Market Bias page has been updated with new indicators to
determine if there is a strong bias for the market to move higher
(or lower) the following day.  From Friday’s close several
bearish signals were triggered.  It will be interesting to
see if today’s selloff continues through the week. 

Click here for more information on our Daily Market Bias
indicators.

Stocks in Motion

Citigroup ( C | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) Reportedly Plans For Restructuring, Likely To Cut 15k Jobs (full story).  C shares dropped by 0.5%. Merck ( MRK | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating), Schering-Plough ( SGP | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) To Develop New Combo Pill For Cholesterol Reduction (full story).  MRK shares lost 1.3%, while SGP shares gained 2.1%. Tiffany ( TIF | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) Q4 Profit Unchanged From Last Year; Sales Up 15%; Sees 2007 EPS Growth Of 15% (full story).  TIF shares closed fractionally lower. Alcatel-Lucent ( ALU | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) Wins $6 Bln Contract From Verizon Wireless For Ongoing Network Expansion (full story).  ALU shares rose by 3.5%. Higher Sales, Gross Margin Lift Walgreen ( WAG | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) Q2 Profit Up By 24.5% (full story).  WAG shares fell by 1%. Kimberly-Clark ( KMB | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) Backs FY07 View; Sees Q1 Adj. EPS Inline Or Above Upper End Of Its Outlook; Aims 3-yr Cost Savings Of $350 Mln – $450 Mln (full story).  KMB shares fell by 0.2%. For more stories as they happen, go to our Breaking News section.

Market Snapshot

Dow -11.94 12,469.07 NASDAQ +6.70 2,455.63 S&P 500 +1.39 1,437.50   NYSE NASDAQ Volume 2,741,278,000 1,712,079,000 Advances 1541 1387 Declines 1697 1673 Up Volume 1245 999 Down Volume 1309 598 New Highs 179 138 New Lows 15 47

Strongest/Weakest Sectors

Strongest Sectors Weakest Sectors S&P Chemicals Index (CEX) Nasdaq Transportation Index (TRANX) Amex Networking Index (NWX) Dow Jones Equity REIT Index (DJR) Amex Gold Bugs Index (HUI) Amex Airline Index (XAL)

Economic News

New Home Sales 848K vs 995K consensus

Darren Wong

Associate Editor

darrenw@tradingmarkets.com