Weak Dollar Helping These Blue Chips, And Popular Diet Helps This Company!


Stocks were mixed in choppy trading on quadruple-witch Friday,

with the Dow and S&P making it four straight
up-weeks — the longest streak in three months. Eleven Dow stocks made 52-week
highs, including Alcoa
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, which benefited from a Morgan Stanley upgrade.
Other Dow 52-week highs were Caterpillar, ExxonMobil, Wells Fargo, Boeing, Ford,
Schlumberger, American Express, and International Paper. Many companies selling
goods globally are benefiting from the weak dollar.

Traders shrugged off an ABC News report — which the network later backed away
from — of a “credible and imminent threat” to New York City.

The EU gave GE
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the go-ahead to purchase Vivendi’s
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US assets, making it the largest
media and entertainment company in the US. Software giant Microsoft
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was hit with a lawsuit by RealNetworks
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for using its
“monopoly” power to make it harder for consumers to use competing technologies.
Real accused Microsoft of restricting how PC makers install competing media
players, forcing use of its own player. Janus Capital
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made an
announcement to restore $31.5 million related to previously disclosed frequent
trading of accounts. Colgate-Palmolive
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agreed to purchase Swiss
oral-care products company GABA Holdings for between $630 million and $830
million. The acquisition is expected to dilute Colgate’s 2004 earnings by 3%.

In IPO action,
Kintera
(KNTA) was priced below the range, but nevertheless managed a 56%
gain in its debut. The stock was priced at $7 and closed the day at $10.30.
Luminent Mortgage
(LUM) was priced at $13 and closed at $13.56.

Dow
+30.14

10278.22
S&P 500 -0.51
1088.67
Nasdaq
-5.16

1951.02

The day’s leading sectors were Disk Drives
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+0.86%, Banks
(
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+0.38%, and Utilities [UTY.X|
UTY.X]
+.28%.

Weak today were Amex Gold
Bugs
[HUI.X|
HUI.X] -3.23%, and Gold
and Silver

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-2.67%, and Oil Services {OSX.X|OSX.X]
-0.89%.

No Economic news
releases today.

The dollar
was +0.31 at 88.16

Gold was -1.68 at 408.58

Crude Oil was -0.77 at
33.02

Volume was
1,589,581,000 on
the NYSE, and
1,777,870,000 on the Nasdaq.

Market breadth was mixed.

NYSE Issues
Advancing 1634 Up Vol
697
Declining 1625 Down Vol 722
Ratio 1.00 1.03
Nasdaq
Advancing 1505 Up Vol
781
Declining 1696 Down Vol
918
Ratio 1.12 1.17

Stocks in the news:


Verizon

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received a favorable court
ruling today with its shares hitting a 2-month high. A U.S. appeals court ruled
that the music industry’s methods for tracking copiers of music over the
Internet are not authorized by law. Verizon had been forced to reveal the
identities of subpoenaed customers.

Cal-Marine Foods
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rose 16%,
reporting record second-quarter income of $17.6 million compared with $2 million
a year ago. Revenue rose more than 50% to $149.9 million due to higher demand
for eggs due to the popular Atkins diet craze.

Linux software maker Red Hat
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rose 15% on a solid earnings. Net income for the third quarter rose to $4.1
million, up from $214,000 in the year-ago period. Revenue jumped 36% to $33.1
million. Banc of America Securities also upgraded Red Hat to buy on favorable
subscription bookings.

Tektronix
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reported higher income
of $36.5 million on sales of $217.9 million. It expects third-quarter sales to
be around $225 million with earnings of about 23 cents per share.

Payroll processor Paychex
(
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reported second-quarter earnings of $80.7 million on revenues of $312.1 million,
meeting analysts estimates. Wachovia downgraded the stock on the news.

bricew@tradingmarkets.com