Slightly Lower Opening Ahead
The market is looking to open slightly lower on
Smith Barney’s lowering its price target for Intel
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Tech stocks, already hit hard in yesterday’s sell-off which wiped out the Nasdaq
gains from Friday’s light volume session, will be most affected by this news.
Also, key in the mind of Wall Street will be President Bush’s speech which will
address corporate accounting practices and attempt to restore investor confidence
in corporate America. The S&P Futures are down 1.00, the Nasdaq-100 (Globex) is
down 5.00, and the DJIA Futures are down -40.00.
Bush’s speech is expected to take place at 11:30
PM ET.
Potentially adding to downward pressure was a
statement from Merrill Lynch that it was lowering earnings estimates on semi
equipment for 2003. This was attributed to slower projected growth of the PC
segment and weak consumer buying. Merrill included in its statement lowered
estimates for Applied Materials
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Novellus Systems
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PowerRating).
Citrix Systems
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PowerRating) stated that it would
miss targeted revenues in the second quarter.
Marathon Oil has been downgraded by Lehman
Brothers to “market perform” from “strong buy” based on lessened prospects of
being bought out within the next 12 to 18 months.
Retek Inc. has warned that it will earn less than
expected for the rest of the year, with full year sales now expected to be
between $215 million and $230 million vs. previous expectations of $250 million.