TradingMarkets 7 Stocks You Need To Know For Friday

November 17, 2005
Brice Wightman

Stocks rallied Thursday, with the
S&P near 2-month highs and the Nasdaq at four-and-a-half year highs.
Transports also made a new high. Crude fell by over a dollar, to a five-month
low.

Jobless claims for the week of 11/12 fell 25,000 to
303,000. The 4-week moving average is 321,500.
(report)
Â Housing starts for October fell
5.6%, coming in at 2.014 million annualized units.(report)
Â Building permits saw their biggest
decrease since December 1999. Capacity utilization rose to 79.5%,
in-line and industrial production rose 0.9%
(report).
Â The Philly Fed was better than
expected at 11.5 in November. (report).
For more economic news,
click here.

General Motors
(
GM |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) rallied after CEO
Rick Wagoner said in an internal memo that the company’s financials are solid
and any bankruptcy rumors are overblown. The stock rose 6% after hitting an
18-year low yesterday.

Now, here are a few stocks to watch on Friday:

Disney
(
DIS |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) beat by 0.02, ex-items. Revenue was
$7.73 billion, slightly less than expected.

Hewlett Packard
(
HPQ |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) reported Q4 ofÂ 0.51 GAAP earnings, beating
by 0.04 and beat on revenues at $22.9 billion. The company also guided higher.
(story)
HPQ is the best performing Dow component this year.