Stocks Finish Week On a Down Note

The U.S. stock markets continued to
see weakness throughout most of Friday’s session, but was able to
climb back slightly off the low’s of the day.  A continued
increase in the price of oil has generated some of the negative
sentiment.

Crude prices moved up once again to
close at $61.00 per barrel.  Stockpiles of crude and
distillates continue declining and news on Iran’s nuclear program
continued to keep crude prices up.  Gold and silver reached
9-month highs with gold closing up 0.5% to $686.70 an ounce and
silver up 2.4% to $14.59 an ounce.

Around Europe, the U.K.’s
FTSE 100 index climbed 0.32% to 6,401.50, while France’s CAC 40
index rose 0.15% to 5,716.38 and Germany’s DAX index surged up
0.27% to 6,992.58.



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Stocks in
Motion

Microsoft
(
MSFT |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
Ordered To Pay $1.52 Bln In Damages
To Alcatel-Lucent
(
ALU |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
For Patent Infringement (full
story)
.  MSFT shares closed lower by 1.7%, while ALU shares gained
1.8%.

Kraft Foods
(
KFT |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
Recalls Oscar Mayer/Louis Rich
Chicken Breast Strips And Cuts From Market (full
story
).  KFT shares finish fractionally lower.

Chesapeake Energy
(
CHK |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
Q4 Net Rises, Adj. EPS Tops
Consensus; Revenue Up 7% (full
story
).  CHK shares rose by 2.1%.

Lowe’s
(
LOW |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
Q4 Profit Declines 12%; EPS Tops
Estimate; Guides Q1, FY07 (full
story
).  LOW shares gained nearly 4%.

Intuit
(
INTU |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
Q2 Net Income Slips 21% On Cost Factor,
Cuts FY07 View (full
story
).  INTU shares moved higher by 1%.

For more stories as they happen, go to our
Breaking News section.

Market Snapshot

Dow

-38.54 12,647.48

NASDAQ

-9.84 2,515.10

S&P 500

-5.19 1,451.19

 

NYSE NASDAQ

Volume

2,516,237,000 1,997,280,000

Advances

1584 1339

Declines

1669 1702

Up Volume

1032 676

Down Volume

1290 1234

New Highs

205 168

New Lows

24 34



Strongest/Weakest Sectors

Strongest Sectors

Weakest Sectors

Amex Disk Drive Index (DDX) Amex Securities Broker/Dealer Index (XBD)
Amex Networking Index (NWX) Nasdaq Other Finance Index (OFINX)
Amex Oil Index (XOI) Dow Jones Equity REIT (DJR)


Economic
News

No economic reports released
today.

Darren Wong

Associate Editor

darrenw@tradingmarkets.com