Stocks Rise Despite Weak Economic Data

  • April 4, 2007
  • Darren Wong

U.S. stocks rose after Iran agreed to free British
sailors.  The Nasdaq Composite led the major indices by
gaining 0.3%.  Semiconductor companies helped fuel gains in
the Nasdaq.  Sandisk
(
SNDK |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) added 2%, Applied
Materials
(
AMAT |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) gained 1.6%, and Lam Research
(
LRCX |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
rose 1.9%.

May Crude futures fell $0.26 to
close at $64.38 per barrel.  Gold futures
rose by $7.80 to $677.50 an ounce.

Around Europe, France’s CAC 40 Index gained 0.5%
to 5,739.01, Germany’s DAX finished up 0.4% to 7,073.91, and the
U.K.’s FTSE 100 Index closed fractionally lower to 6,364.70.

Our

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determine if there is a strong bias for the market to move higher
(or lower) the following day.  These tables can help you to
pinpoint market conditions that have historically led to
significant up or down moves over the next 1 to 5 days. 

Click here for more information on our Daily Market Bias
indicators.



Stocks in
Motion

Monster Worldwide
(
MNST |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) Cuts Q1 Revenue Outlook;
Backs FY07 Revenue Forecast (full
story).  MNST shares dropped over 13%.


Monsanto
(
MON |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) Q2 Profit Up 23%, EPS Tops Consensus; Sales Up 19% (full
story).  MON shares added 3.2%.

Best Buy
(
BBY |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) Q4 Profit Rises On Strong Top Line
Growth, 5.9% Rise In Comps; Gives FY08 View (full
story).  BBY shares lost 2.6%.

Circuit City Stores
(
CC |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) Slides To Loss In Q4 On
Restructuring Charges; Gives FY08 Sales View (full
story).  CC shares fell by 0.4%.

Panera Bread
(
PNRA |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) Q1 Sales Rise 24%; March Comp.
Slips 0.2%; Sees Q1 EPS At Or Below Prior Outlook (full
story).  PNRA shares fell by 4.3%.

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

Market Snapshot

Dow

 +19.75 12,530.05

NASDAQ

 +8.36 2,458.69

S&P 500

 +1.60 1,439.37

 

 NYSE NASDAQ

Volume

 2,570,818,000 1,708,404,000

Advances

 1725 1347

Declines

 1510 1633

Up Volume

 1254 1015

Down Volume

 1061 556

New Highs

 238 141

New Lows

 21 36



Strongest/Weakest Sectors

Strongest Sectors

Weakest Sectors
GSTI Semiconductor Index (GSM) Dow Jones Internet Commerce Index (ECM)
Amex Gold Bugs Index (HUI) CBOE Internet Index (INX)
Nasdaq Computer Index (IXCOX) Amex Disk Drive Index (DDX)


Economic
News

EIA reports that crude
inventories showed a build of 4307K barrels

Factory
Orders +1.0% vs +1.8% consensus, prior -5.6%

ISM Services 52.4 vs 55.0 consensus, prior 54.3

Darren Wong

Associate Editor

darrenw@tradingmarkets.com