TGT Up 9% – This Is Why

Stocks
have reversed courses this mid-day. It was one year ago today the indices
bottomed.
The Nasdaq is up 500 points or 40% from
the low last year.
Most sectors
are down with the exception of the semis with Transmeta
(
TMTA |
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leading the way, on an announcement of its early release of one of its chips.
Greenspan testified before the House Education Committee, warning against
protectionism policies. ImClone
(
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filed suit against Sam Waksal
in an attempt to collect more than $21 million for unpaid income taxes they paid
for Sam Waksal. Initial claims were revised to 341,000, down 6,000, with the
4-wk average down to 345K from 353K. Retail sales rose by 0.6%, the largest
increase since November

After the close, Oracle
(
ORCL |
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is expected to report Q3; analysts are looking for $0.12.

Dow  +0.96
10297.79
S&P 500
-0.75
1123.28
Nasdaq
+10.84

1974.99

The day’s leading sectors are
Chemicals
(
CEX.X |
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+0.73%, Retails
(
RLX.X |
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+0.35%,
Internet

(
GIN.X |
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+0.34%, Semis
(
SOX.X |
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+0.29%.

Weak today are Oil
(
OIX.X |
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-1.52%, Energy
(
DXE.X |
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PowerRating)
-1.47%.

Economic news releases today
included export prices ex-ag that rose by 0.6%, Import prices ex-oil that was up
a disappointing 0.4%.  Initial claims were 6K better at 341K. Retail sales rose
by 0.6%.

10-year Notes are +55 at
117 155

Dollar is -0.22 at 88.80

Gold is -1.60 at 398.70

Crude Oil is +0.07 at
36.17

Euro is -1.02 at 122.34

Volume is 850,000,000 on
the NYSE, and 1,021,000,000 on the Nasdaq.

Market breadth is negative.

NYSE  Issues  
Advancing  1254 Up Vol      
249
Declining 1925 Down Vol   563
Ratio  1.54 2.31
Nasdaq     
Advancing  1296 Up Vol     
1296
Declining  1723 Dow Vol   
1723
Ratio  1.40 1.30

Top Dow stocks are:

Alcoa
(
AA |
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Chart |
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PowerRating)
, +1.30% at 34.60, Du
Pont 
[DD|DD
],
+1.14% at 42.43, McDonalds [MCD|MCD
]
+1.00% at 29.26, Johnson and Johnson [JNJ|JNJ
],
+0.84% at 52.20.

Stocks in the news:

Microsoft
(
MSFT |
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PowerRating)
is delaying the
release of its SQL Server database and Visual Studio studio by 6 months until
the second half of 2005 instead of the end of 2004, impacting renewals of long
term licensing contracts.

Target
(
TGT |
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lept 8% after hiring
Goldman Sachs to look into possible sales of Mervyn’s and Marshall Fields units.

Quicksilver
(
ZQK |
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PowerRating)
reported first-quarter earnings
that rose to $9.2 million on revenue of $256.1 million. It expects 2004 earnings
to reach $1.22 on revenue of $1.1 billion.

Yellow Roadway
(
YELL |
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News |
PowerRating)
raised first-quarter 2004
forecast saying it expects to reach all February profitability targets. Earnings
are expected to reach 0.30 for the next quarter. Trucking companies are strong
today.


bricew@tradingmarkets.com