Watch These 3 Stocks After The Close

  • January 26, 2004
  • Brice Wightman

Stocks
are mixed on light volume, with fewer new highs
and a weaker advance/decline line today, but no real selling pressure.
Approximately 30% of the companies listed in the
S&P 500 index are expected to report earnings this week.  Drug manufacturer 
Schering-Plough
(
SGP |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) reported a disappointing fourth quarter as as it
lost $181 million on revenues of $8.33 billion.  SGP also warned analysts to
expect lower numbers for 2004 due to increased competition from the generic drug
industry.  Consumer goods maker Kimberly-Clark
(
KMB |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) reported a 24%
increase in profit despite a major price war with competitor Proctor & Gamble
(
PG |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating). 
Net income rose to $459.5 million on sales of $3.7 billion. Top battery and
razor maker Energizer
(
ENR |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) reported higher earnings with its sales
rising 42% to $811.7 million.  Earnings for the quarter rose 33% to $115
million. Lastly, the Federal Reserve is expected to meet tomorrow and is
expected to leave interest rates unchanged at the 45-year low of 1%.  

After the bell, McDonalds
(
MCD |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating), Novellus
(
NVLS |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating), and Texas Instruments
(
TXN |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
are expected to report earnings. They are expected to earn $0.35, $0.06, $0.19 a
share respectively.  

Dow 
+32.02
10600.36
S&P 500
 +2.05
1143.60
Nasdaq +0.69
2123.18

The day’s leading sectors are
Networking
(
NWX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) +2.00%, Hardware
(
HWI.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) +1.42%,
Pharmaceuticals
(
DRG.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) +1.03%,
Disk Drives
(
DDX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) +0.68%.

Weak today are Amex Gold
Bugs
(
HUI.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) -1.47%, and Airlines
(
XAL.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) -1.39%.

Economic news releases included
higher December Existing Home Sales at $6.47 million.

10-year Notes are  -80
at 113 240

Dollar is +0.25 at 87.10

Gold is -2.00 at 409.00

Crude Oil  is -0.43 at
33.60

Volume is 610,000,000 on
the NYSE, and 890,000,000 on the Nasdaq.

Market breadth is negative.

NYSE  Issues  
Advancing  1363 Up Vol      
297
Declining 1796 Down Vol  
294
Ratio  1.32 1.31
Nasdaq     
Advancing  1491 Up Vol     
492
Declining  1562 Down Vol  
337
Ratio  1.06 1.46

Top Dow stocks are:

Hewlett Packard [HPQ|HPQ],
+3.07%  at 26.05, Merck [MRK|MRK],
+2.26% at 46.84, Intl Paper
(
IP |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating), +1.75% at 43.07, AT&T [T|T],
+1.61% at 20.00.

Stocks in the news:

Printer maker Lexmark International
(
LXK |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
reported fourth-quarter earnings of $138.8 million on sales of  $1.37 billion. 
Both numbers indicated a strong demand for its printers but the manufacturer
cautioned investors on the outlook due to increased competition.

Idexx Laboratories
(
IDXX |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) reported
earnings of $12.4 million as its shares traded 5% higher.  Revenue was up 18% to
$124.8 million.

Tyson Foods
(
TSN |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) rose 10% after
reporting net income of $57 million on sales of $6.5 billion.  Higher margins
and improved pricing enabled the company to shrug off declines due to the
mad-cow disease effect.

eBay
(
EBAY |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) announced it has agreed
to purchase German online classified listings company Mobile.de for $152
million.  

bricew@tradingmarkets.com