New Names In The Semiconductor Index–Here They Are

Positive news from Intel
is outweighing a weaker than expected jobs report
, sending the market
higher. Nonfarm payrolls rose 112,000 vs. a 200,000 expectation; it was the
weakest figure since July. October’s sizzling 337,000 number was revised to
303,000. Unemployment was 5.4% in November vs. 5.5% in October. Eight million
Americans are unemployed versus 140 million with jobs.

In its mid-quarter
update, Intel (INTC)
announced Q4 revenue will be much higher than expected; analysts were looking
for $8.97 billion but now the company says it expects Q4 sales to be in the
$9.3-$9.5 billion range. Margins are expected to be in-line with expectations.
The stock is trading up.

With the weak jobs number, interest rates are
lower, giving a lift to interest-rate sensitive stocks such as utilities, REITs
and homebuilders.

UBS doesn’t feel comfortable with the rise in
commodity-based stocks such as Alcoa and Alcoa, saying there is an emerging
cyclical slowdown.

As of today, the $SOX has some new names. Out are
Motorola
(
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and LSI Logic
(
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and in are Freescale
(
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, Infineon
(
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and Marvell
(
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.

Strong sectors are: Semis
(
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+2.64%, Oil
Services

(
OSX.X |
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+1.95%, Computer Technology
(
XCI.X |
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+1.50%.

Weak sectors are: Airlines
(
XAL.X |
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+3.57%, Banks
(
BKS.X |
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-0.53%, Internet
(
GIN.X |
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-0.50%.

Dow +30.01 10615.13
S&P 500 +3.48 1193.81
Nasdaq +10.86 2154.43

The dollar is -0.59 at
81.36

Gold is +1.70 to 450.90

Crude Oil is -0.45 at 42.80

ce=”Arial” size=”2″ face=”Arial”>Volume is 735 million on the NYSE and
1.25 billion on the Nasdaq.

Market breadth is positive.

NYSE Issues
Advancing 1973 Up Vol 399
Declining 1180 Down Vol 274
Ratio 1.67 1.45
Nasdaq
Advancing 1376 Up Vol 869
Declining 1556 Down Vol 323
Ratio 1.13 2.69

Stocks in the News.

Semiconductor HOLDRs
(
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are in play after the Intel news.

The New York Times said that IBM may be putting its PC business
up for sale–worth potentially $2 billion.

American Greetings
(
AM |
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will cut 300 jobs to reduce costs.

Biomira
(
BIOM |
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said Phase II trials of its lung cancer drug were
encouraging.

Oracle
(
ORCL |
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was downgraded at Wachovia to market perform from
outperform.

BJ’s Wholesale, Target and Costco were cut to sell at
Lazard.

Ann Taylor
(
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was downgraded at Merrill, JP Morgan and Deutsche
Bank.

 

Today in History

1931 Alka Seltzer went on sale

Brice Wightman