TradingMarkets Mid-Day Movers

U.S. Stocks are trading mixed after the release of several
economic reports this morning (listed below).  The Dow is leading the major
indices to the downside with Alcoa
(
AA |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
and United Technologies
(
UTX |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
moving lower by 1.5% and 1% respectively.

Today’s choppy trading is
representative of what we were expecting based on our

PowerRatings
Heat Maps*
from Thursday’s close.  Of the 30 sectors covered by the Heat Maps, 27 are
showing price action that has historically led to weakness.  There are few
low risk buying opportunities in this current market that is struggling to move
higher.  Traders should exercise caution, especially in the Energy and
Manufacturing sectors.

After ending the previous session in
negative territory, the price of oil is moving back to the upside in morning
trading on Friday. Crude for March delivery is currently up $0.28 at $57.58 a
barrel after ending Thursday’s trading down $0.84 a barrel.

The rebound by the price of oil is partly
due to lingering concerns about the impact of colder weather on heating oil
demand, as well as expectations that OPEC is likely to follow-through on its
plans to cut production by another 500,000 barrels.

Stocks in
Motion

Amazon
(
AMZN |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
Q4 Profit Drops 51%, Tops Estimates;
Guides Q1, FY07 Sales Above Consensus (full
story
).  AMZN shares fall  by 3%.

Anheuser-Busch
(
BUD |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
Reports Higher Q4 Profit On
Strong International Operations (full
story
).  BUD shares trade lower by 0.4%.

British Airways
(
BAB |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
Q3 Profit Falls On Disruptions,
Trims FY07 Revenue Forecast (full
story
).  BAB shares gain 0.6%.

Walgreen
(
WAG |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
January Comps. Up 10.8%; Total Sales
Rise 16.6% (full
story
).  WAG shares lose 0.8%.

Secure Computing Corp.
(
SCUR |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
Gaining Ground On Q4
News (full
story
).  SCUR shares soar by 24%.

For more stories as they happen, go to our
Breaking News section.

Market Snapshot

Dow

-27.40 12,646.28

NASDAQ

+2.66 2,471.04

S&P 500

-0.39 1,445.55

 

NYSE NASDAQ

Volume

966,088,000 782,653,000

Advances

1614 1481

Declines

1441 1351

Up Volume

439 466

Down Volume

407 243

New Highs

293 130

New Lows

10 27


Strongest/Weakest Sectors

Strongest Sectors

Weakest Sectors

GSTI Software Index (GSO) Amex Gold Bugs Index (HUI)
Amex Networking Index (NWX) CBOE Oil Index (OIX)
GSTI Multimedia Index (GIP) Amex Oil Index (XOI)

Economic
News

Factory Orders +2.4% vs +1.8%
consensus

Michigan Sentiment-rev 96.9 vs 97.8
consensus

Nonfarm Payrolls 111K vs 150K consensus

Hourly Earnings +0.2% vs +0.3% consensus

Unemployment Rate 4.6% vs 4.5% consensus

Average Workweek 33.8 vs 33.9 consensus

Darren Wong

Associate Editor

darrenw@tradingmarkets.com