This Sector Showed Some Strength Today
Stocks fell
on quadruple witching Friday with all eyes on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border as
US and Pakistani forces continue to clash with al Qaeda. This was the second
straight down week for the market, with the Dow losing 0.5%, the S&P falling
0.97%, and the Nasdaq sliding 2.2%.
Oil hit a new 13-year high on concerns over summer
gasoline supplies. Many companies have raised
estimates this week, including Masco
(
MAS |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating), Stanley Works
(
SWK |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating),
Fortune Brands
(
FO |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) and FedEx
(
FDX |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating). The February
Semiconductor book-to-bill ratio was 1.14, below consensus.
The dollar traded lower against
the euro once again after reports of bomb threat to Washington DC schools.
Adobe Systems
(
ADBE |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
rose 10% after reporting earnings that more than doubled at $123 million with
revenue rising 43% to $423 million. The company also raised annual growth target
to 15% with earnings at $1.43 a share.
Marathon Oil
(
MRO |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
announced a deal to purchase a 38% stake in Ashland
(
ASH |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) for $2.93
billion. MRO would own Ashland’s the entire US refining, transportation and
marketing operations. Ashland would also pay $94 million to make its business
more compatible with Marathon’s.
| Dow | -109.26 |
10186.52 |
| S&P 500 |
-12.54 |
1109.78 |
| Nasdaq | -21.97 |
1940.47 |
The day’s leading sector was
Gold
(
XAU.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) +0.33%.
Weak today were Semis
(
SOX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
-3.60%, Oil Services
(
OSX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) -2.28%, Hardware
(
HWI.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
-2.00%, and Disk Drives
(
DDX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) -1.96%
10-year Notes were -40 at
117 040
The dollar
was +0.46 at 88.16
Gold was +0.85 at 411.99
Crude oil was +0.26 at
37.62
Volume was
1,436,803,000 on
the NYSE, and 1,653,691,000 on the Nasdaq.
Market breadth was negative.
| NYSE | Issues | |
| Advancing | 1250 | Up Vol 340 |
| Declining | 2002 | Down Vol 1073 |
| Ratio | 1.60 |
3.15 |
| Nasdaq | ||
| Advancing | 1208 | Up Vol 401 |
| Declining | 1890 | Down Vol 1222 |
| Ratio | 1.56 |
3.04 |
Stocks in the news:
Solectron
(
SLR |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) posted a narrower
loss of $68 million on revenue of $2.89 billion. The 2 penny loss was in line
with estimates but analysts were disappointed with lower gross margin of 4.5%
Tektronix
(
TEK |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) reported
third-quarter net loss of $43.6 million vs the $2 million net-loss the same
period last year with revenue up at $243.5 million.
Coca-Cola
(
KO |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) recalled half a million bottles of
Dasani water sold in Britain after detecting a higher-than-permitted level of
the chemical bromate.
Nike
(
NKE |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) posted
earnings of $200.3 million, beating estimates by a penny with revenue up 21% at
$2.9 billion.