Stocks Close The Week On An Up Note
Stocks gained ground Friday,
with the major indices closing at their highs.
The semis, however ended slightly in the red.
The CPI for September rose 1.2%, the most
in 25 years. Core CPI rose +0.1%. Much of the increase came from skyrocketing
energy prices. Retail sales rose 0.2%; ex auto, +1.1%. Stocks
rallied early in the session on this news, but pulled back somewhat after the
University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index fell to 75.4 in
October vs 76 9 in September.
Business inventories for August rose 0.4%,
more than expected.
Yahoo
(
YHOO |
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PowerRating) is in preliminary talks
to buy a stake in AOL, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Refco
(
RFX |
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PowerRating) is still halted, down 72%
on the week.
General Electric
(
GE |
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PowerRating) reported 0.44, in-line with estimates.
Boston Scientific
(
BSX |
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PowerRating) missed by 0.03
and guided Q4 lower.
Waters
(
WAT |
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PowerRating) guided lower for Q3, and
now expects 0.43.
United Health
(
UNH |
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PowerRating) reported 0.64, beating by a penny. Revenues rose 15%.
U.S. funds have seen net ouflows for seven
straight weeks.
Strong sectors were: Airlines
(
XAL |
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PowerRating)
+2.91% Oil Services
(
OSX |
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PowerRating) +2.53%
Healthcare
(
HMO |
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PowerRating) +2.48%
Weak sectors were:
Gold
(
XAU |
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PowerRating) -0.88%
Semis
(
SOX |
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PowerRating) -0.81%
|
|
+72.68 | 10,289.27 |
| +17.61 | 2064.83 | |
| +9.84 | 1186.73 |
More stocks on the move:
Knight Ridder
(
KRI |
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PowerRating) reported 0.67,
beating by a penny.
Celgene
(
CELG |
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PowerRating) was upgraded to buy at
Merrill Lynch.
Texas Instruments
(
TXN |
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PowerRating) was downgraded
at Bear Stearns, to peer perform from outperform.
Ford
(
F |
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PowerRating) was downgraded to sell at
Citigroup.
Schlumberger
(
SLB |
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PowerRating) was upgraded to buy
at Bank of America.
Research in Motion
(
RIMM |
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Chart |
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PowerRating) was
downgraded to underperform at Bear Stearns.
Brice Wightman