‘The Best We’ve Seen In Years’
Stocks are
higher after a strong earnings report from GE.
General Electric
(
GE |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) reported earnings that rose 3% to $3.92 billion,
with revenue up at $37 billion. Both numbers beat analysts expectations. Nine of
11 businesses showed double-digit gains with orders growing at a 13% rate. The
company raised the low end of FY 04 forecasts by a penny to $1.55 to $1.60 a
share. Oil prices remained strong, hovering near the $40 level. CEO Jeff Immelt
call the US economy ‘the best we’ve seen in years.’
Abbott Labs
(
ABT |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) reported earnings on higher sales of its Humira
drug with earnings of $634.3 million, and revenue up 14% to $4.7 billion. FY EPS
is expected to reach $2.24 a share; revenue for Q3 was guided down to $0.52 a
share. ABT is seeking approval to market its prostate cancer drug.
Dana
(
DCN |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) sold its
replacement parts business to Cypress group for $1.1 billion; that unit had 2003
net sales of $2 billion. The deal is expected to close by the end of the
third-quarter.
| Dow | +31.73 | 10202.66 |
| S&P 500 | +2.23 | 1110.40 |
| Nasdaq | 6.76 | 1941.32 |
Strong today are: Disk
Drives
(
DDX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) +2.41%, Semis
(
SOX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) +1.57%, Techs
(
TXX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) +1.07%, Oil Index
(
XOI.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) +0.73%.
Weak today are: Amex Gold
Bugs
(
HUI.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) -1.13%, Â Gold and Silver
(
XAU.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) -0.95%,
Economic news release today
include wholesale inventories that jumped up 1.2%.
10-year Notes are +20 at
110 175
The dollar
is -0.03 at 87.73
Gold is -0.70 at 408.80
Crude Oil is -0.27 at
39.80
Volume is 565 million on
the NYSE, and 700 million on the Nasdaq.
Market breadth is positive.
| NYSE | Issues | |
| Advancing | 1684 | Up Vol 320 |
| Declining | 1313 | Down Vol 197 |
| Ratio | 1.28 | 1.62 |
| Nasdaq |
||
| Advancing | 1612 | Up Vol 457 |
| Declining | 1244 | Down Vol 196 |
| Ratio | 1.30 | 2.33 |
Stocks in the news:
SAP
(
SAP |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
rose after the company gave an early preview of Q2 earnings numbers. The company
said they are expecting to report earnings of $2.2 billion with software revenue
up 15% to $612.8 million.
SuperGen
(
SUPG |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) rose after it
reported positive clinical trial results for treatment of MDS patients.
3COM
(
COMS |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) was downgraded by
Piper Jaffray, which cited concerns about the departure of its VP and believe it
may be earnings related.
Unisys
(
UIS |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) sank after lowering
Q2 earnings forecasts and now expects EPS of 5 cents a share on revenue of $1.38
billion.
Brice Wightman
bricew@tradingmarkets.com