This Stock Got Six Upgrades Today
Stocks are
higher with investors confident of a stronger first quarter.
Juniper
(
JNPR |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) rose
20% on earnings, surprising investors with earnings of $14.7 million. Sales rose
33% to $207 million and the company received six upgrades from various
brokerages.
General Electric
(
GE |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
reported a 45% gain in fourth-quarter earnings, with revenue up 4%. Income
reached $4.56 billion on sales of $37 billion. CEO Jeff Immelt said the company
was happy with its 19% rise in fourth-quarter orders and expects industrial
business to grow. Texas Instruments‘
(
TXN |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) CEO Tom Engibous will step
down from his role as CEO but will remain as the chairman of the board. This is
the second time this week that a major company has decided to split CEO and
chairman duties.
A report from Merrill Lynch
indicates that US municipal investors enjoyed the best rate of return for the
past five years–a 34% increase for the period ending Dec 31, 2003. The consumer
sentiment index jumped to 103.2, much higher than expected. The dollar rose
higher for the fifth consecutive day, with the majority of purchases by foreign
investors.
| Dow | +19.48 |
10557.66 |
| S&P 500 | +2.59 | 1133.41 |
| Nasdaq | 2.16 | 2113.87 |
The day’s leading sectors are
Networking
(
NWX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) +6.90%, Internet
(
INX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) +3.02%,
Biotechs
(
BTK.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) +2.02%, Oil
Services
(
OSX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) +1.90%.
Weak today is Retail
(
RLX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
-0.21%, and Pharmaceuticals
(
DRG.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) -4.22%.
Economic news releases showed a
0.3% increase for Business Inventories, Industrial Production that rose by
0.1%. Capacity Utilization at 75.8% and a much stronger Consumer sentiment of
103.2.
10-year Notes are -130
at 114 075
Dollar is +1.17 at 88.04
Gold is -1.60 at 408.10
Crude Oil is +.64 at
32.75
Volume is 823,000,000 on
the NYSE, and 1,341,000,000 on the Nasdaq.
Market breadth is negative.
| NYSE | Issues | |
| Advancing | 1837 | Up Vol 582 |
| Declining | 1311 | Down Vol 229 |
| Ratio | 1.40 | 2.52 |
| Nasdaq | ||
| Advancing | 1808 | Up Vol 1024 |
| Declining | 1208 | Down Vol 304 |
| Ratio | 1.50 | 3.34 |
Top Dow stocks are:
General Motors [GE|GE],
+2.11% at 32.34, 3M
(
MMM |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating), +1.18% at 85.27, IBM [IBM|IBM],
+1.11% at 95.05,and Boeing [BA|BA],
0.86% at 43.44
Stocks in the news:
Energy producer TXU
(
TXU |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) has sold its
telecom unit, TXU Communications, to Consolidated Communications for $524
million.
Rambus
(
RMBS |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) rose higher after
reporting a 56% increase in net income. For the fourth-quarter, it earned $8.6
million on revenue of $32.4 million. A 49% drop in legal expenses contributed to
the higher earnings.
Sun Microsystems
(
SUNW |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) experienced a
better quarter, lowering its net loss to $125 million. Sales reached $2.89
billion, $160 million better than analysts’ consensus. Gross margin was 1.5%
lower at 41.8%.
bricew@tradingmarkets.com