Stocks Rise Despite Higher Oil

Stocks were higher, ignoring higher oil.
Oil surged to near $60 on hurricane concerns.

Crude was higher on the talk that Tropical Storm Cindy may
disrupt drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. The storm is expected to make land late
tonight or early tomorrow.  In September, Hurricane Ivan damaged production
facilities in the Gulf, cutting 43.8 million barrels of oil production and 172.3
cubic feet of natural gas output. Right behind Cindy is tropical Storm Dennis,
which may be upgraded to a hurricane later in the week.

S&P Smallcap and Midcap indices, the Amex Oil Index and the PHLX Oil Service
index all made historic highs.

Factory orders rose 2.9% in May, in-line with expectations. Bond yields are
still rising and the dollar rally continued.

Mercury Interactive
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0.30 – 0.35, down from 0.33 – 0.37.

Walgreen [WAG||WAG] June same store sales rose 7.8%.

Wal-Mart
(
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the stock to a buy.

A Jury found that Johnson & Johnson
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Boston Scientific
(
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General Motors is extending its highly successful employee discount
campaign. Last month, the promotion led to the best sales in 18 years and 47%
higher than a year ago. GM said the program will continue on 2005 models until
August 1. Both Daimler Chrysler
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GM’s program.

CSFB cut the homebuilders and specifically KB Home
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and M.D.C. Holdings
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Bausch & Lomb
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Shandong Chia Tai  for $200 million.

A strike at Placer Dome’s Zaldivar mine in Chile
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the stock down over 5%. Contingency plans
were made to mitigate the impact on production.

Strong sectors were:   Oil Services
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+3.36%    Oil
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+2.30%     Natural Gas  
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+2.42%       

Weak sectors were:  Gold
(
XAUI.X |
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-1.08%      Chemicals
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Mohawk
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Merrill Lynch upped Morgan Stanley
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Amazon
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