Trading Up After Hours…
Stocks were
mixed Tuesday on light volume as the market looks for guidance from corporate
earnings and the economy. Merrill
Lynch
(
MER |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) posted earnings of $1.08 billion, 3 cents short of estimates
and affirmed its commitment to their $2 billion share buyback program. The
company’s global markets and investment banking unit pre-tax earnings fell 7% to
$1 billion. Overall revenue reached $5.3 billion.
Johnson & Johnson
(
JNJ |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
posted earnings of 82 cents a share with revenue at $11.48 billion, which fell
short of consensus. The company’s medical devices and diagnostics product grew
11.8% to $4.1 billion with its pharmaceuticals business growing 11.1%
year-over-year. Red Hat
(
RHAT |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
said they will change their method on how they recognize revenue for
subscription agreements and restatement of various financial statements to
reflect applicable changes.
After the close, Intel
(
INTC |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
reported $0.27/share on $8.049 billion sales; the Street was looking for $0.27
and $8.1 billion, so the revenue was lower than expected. The company guided
gross margins for ’04 lower, from 62% to 60%. Intel’s earnings come on the heels
of a broad downgrade of the chip sector yesterday by Merrill Lynch. INTC is down
19% this year.
Juniper
(
JNPR |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
missed by 0.04 and beat on revenues and announced a $250 stock buy back. The
stock traded up after hours.
MCI comes off the pink
sheets tomorrow and will begin trading on the NASDAQ under the symbol MCIP.
| Dow | +9.37 | 10247.59 |
| S&P 500 | +0.79 | 1115.14 |
| Nasdaq | -5.26 | 1931.66 |
Strong today are: Healthcare
(
HMO.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)Â +1.95%, Hardware
(
HWI.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) +1.53%, Retail
(
RLX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating),
+1.13%, Healthcare Provider
(
RXH.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) +0.64%.
Weak today are: Airlines
(
XAL.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) -4.02%, Amex Gold Bugs
(
HUI.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) +1.82%, Gold and
Silver
(
XAU.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) -1.21%.
Economic news release include a
narrower trade balance at -$46 billion.
10-year Notes were -085
at 110 160
The dollar
was +0.47 at 87.82
Gold was -1.70 at 401.50
Crude Oil was +0.06 at
39.54
Volume was 1.19 billion
on the NYSE, and 1.51 billion on the Nasdaq.
Market breadth was mixed.
| NYSE | Issues | |
| Advancing | 1723 | Up Vol 646 |
| Declining | 1554 | Down Vol 531 |
| Ratio | 1.10 | 1.21 |
| Nasdaq |
||
| Advancing | 1486 | Up Vol 487 |
| Declining | 1560 | Down Vol 981 |
| Ratio | 1.04 | 2.01 |
Stocks in the news:
IBM
(
IBM |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) was upgraded by Morgan
Stanley with a price target of $100.
Qualcomm
(
QCOM |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) declared a stock
split and upped its dividend by 40%.
Delta Airlines
(
DAL |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
announced a $1.65 billion charge related to deferred income taxes and pilot
pension plans and said they do not know when they will reach profitability.
Lucent
(
LU |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) won a $5 billion contract
from Verizon Wireless
(
VZ |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) to expand their high-speed data network.
Brice Wightman
bricew@tradingmarkets.com