TradingMarkets Mid-Day Movers

Stocks have come under
pressure in recent trading, with the Nasdaq joining the Dow in
negative territory after remaining positive for much of the
morning. The major averages have all pulled back to new lows for
the session.

The pullback by the
tech-heavy Nasdaq is partly due to weakness that has emerged in
the disk drive and computer hardware sectors. Housing and retail
stocks are also moving lower in late morning trading.

Crude for April delivery is trading
higher by 0.4%
to $60.28 after Energy Department reports showed that U.S.
inventories of heating oil, gasoline, and diesel moved
substantially lower.  Gold for April
delivery is trading lower by 0.3% to $682.10 an
ounce
.

Asian markets finished mostly higher in
Thursday’s session with Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index, Tokyo’s
Nikkei, and Taiwan’s Composite all up nearly 1%.



The weakness that we have been anticipating in our PowerRatings

Heat Maps*
is continuing to play out.  Some of the lowest ranked sectors
from Wednesday’s close continue to be electronics, metals and
mining, and health services. 

Click here
for a free trial to PowerRatings

Heat Maps*,
so that you can quickly gauge overall market direction and go deeper into
individual sectors.



Stocks in
Motion

Whole Foods Market
(
WFMI |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
Stock Rises Despite Weak
Q1, On News Of Acquisition Of Wild Oats Markets
(
OATS |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
(full
story
).  WFMI shares jump 12%, while OATS shares move up by 17.4%.

Apple
(
AAPL |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
, Cisco
(
CSCO |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
Resolve IPhone
Trademark Dispute (full
story
).  AAPL and CSCO shares are both trading fractionally lower.

Toll Brothers
(
TOL |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
Q1 Profit Dips 67% On Write-downs,
Impairment Charge; Adj. EPS Beats Estimate; Revenue Drops 19%; Cuts FY07 Home
Delivery Outlook (full
story
).  TOL shares move lower by 1.4%.

Abercrombie & Fitch
(
ANF |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
Q4 Profit Up 20%, EPS Rises
19% And Matches Analysts’ View; Sees Q1’07 EPS Growth In Mid-single Digit Range,
Shares Fall (full
story
).  ANF shares fall by 2.1%.

Barrick Gold
(
ABX |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
Q4 Profit Rises On Higher Gold
Sales, Realized Prices (full
story
).  ABX shares move lower by 1%.

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

Market Snapshot

Dow

-66.89 12,674.52

NASDAQ

-4.31 2,514.11

S&P 500

-4.06 1,453.57

 

NYSE NASDAQ

Volume

1,154,305,000 975,919,000

Advances

1155 1106

Declines

1923 1709

Up Volume

348 316

Down Volume

601 507

New Highs

244 162

New Lows

12 16



Strongest/Weakest Sectors

Strongest Sectors

Weakest Sectors

GSTI Semiconductor Index (GSM) Computer Hardware Index (HWI)
Morgan Stanley Healthcare Providers Index (RXH) Dow Jones Equity REIT Index (DJR)
GSTI Internet Index (GIN) GSTI Hardware Index (GIN)


Economic
News

Help-Wanted Index 32 vs 34
consensus

Initial Claims 332K vs 325K consensus

Darren Wong

Associate Editor

darrenw@tradingmarkets.com