This Deal Changes The Drugstore Landscape
Stocks are
continuing their upward momentum with the
indices finding support above their 50-day moving averages.
Mandalay Resort Group
(
MBG |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) expects higher first-quarter earnings from
increased Las Vegas room bookings– more than $1.10 a share on reported
occupancy rates of 80% and an average nightly room rate of $240. Siebel
Systems
(
SEBL |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) raised its first-quarter earnings to $28 million on
higher-than-expected software licensing revenue which is expected to be 13%
higher. Three transactions exceeded $5 million.
JC Penney
(
JPC |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) is selling Eckerds to Canadian drugstore chain Jean
Coutu and CVS Corp
(
CVS |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) for $4.5 billion, making CVS the biggest
drugstore ahead of Walgreen
(
WAG |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
| Dow | +24.30 |
10495.40 |
| S&P 500 |
+1.58 | 1143.39 |
| Nasdaq | +5.20 | 2062.43 |
The day’s leading sectors are
Healthcare
(
HMO.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)Â +3.59%, Biotechs
(
BTK.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) +1.08%,
Insurance
(
IUX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) +0.93%, and Disk Drives
(
DDX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) +0.83%.
Weak today are REITs
(
DJR.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
-4.37%, and Gold and Silver
(
XAU.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) -2.61%,
Economic news releases today
included better-than-expected ISM services at 65.8.
10-year Notes are -140
at 112 160
The dollar
is +0.80 at 89.65
Gold is -5.60 at 416.00
Crude Oil is -0.17 at
33.70
Volume is 620,000,000 on
the NYSE, and 822,000,000 on the Nasdaq.
Market breadth is mixed.
| NYSE | Issues | |
| Advancing |
1196 | Up Vol    289 |
| Declining | 1995 | Down Vol  312 |
| Ratio | 1.67 | 1.06 |
| Nasdaq |
||
| Advancing |
1550 | Up Vol   496 |
| Declining |
1503 | Down Vol 300 |
| Ratio | 1.03 | 1.65 |
Top Dow stocks are:
SBC Communications
(
SBC |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
+1.53% at 25.25, General Motors
(
GM |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) +1.00% at 47.06, General
Electric
(
GE |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating), +0.99% at 31.37, and Hewlett Packard
(
HPQ |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
+0.99% at 23.30.
Stocks in the news:
General Electric
(
GE |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) said it would use
Critical Path’s
(
CPTH |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) identity management software for its 400,000
employees. Shares of CPTH soared 60%.
Nortel
(
NT |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) said the SEC has
launched a formal investigation into the restatement of its financial results.
Cigna
(
CI |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) upped its
first-quarter earnings forecasts to $260 million and $750 million for the full
year, citing better-than-expected performance from its healthcare business.
Brice Wightman
bricew@tradingmarkets.com