Who Will Take Over This Coveted One-Letter Symbol?

Stocks were mostly lower on the 5-year
anniversary of the peak in the NDX and SPX.  Oil once again got the
headline

New homes sales rose 9.4% in February to an annualized rate of 1.226 million,
above forecasts and the highest rate since December 2000.

General Electric
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raised Q1 guidance by a penny.

Northrup Grumman
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upped guidance to $3.60-$3.75, the company
also boosted its dividend to 0.26 from 0.23.

ConAgra
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beat by 0.02 and will restate 2003 and 2004 results.

Yahoo
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will repurchase $3 billion in stock over the next
five years.

PBS’ Wall $treet Week With Fortune is being cancelled after
three years on the air; the last show airs in June. The show replaced Wall $treet
Week With Louis Rukeyser
after the host was fired after 32 years.

Sears
(
S |
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left the NYSE today and will trade on the Nasdaq on
Monday. Symbol: SHLD (Sears Holdings). Shares of KMRT were bid up dramatically
just before the close as SHLD will be will be added to the S&P 500. What company
will take over this coveted one-letter symbol?

Strong sectors were:  Utilities
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$UTY.X |
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+1.30%  
Computer Hardware

(
$HWI.X |
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   Homebuilders
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$HGX.X |
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+1.08% 

Weak sectors were:  Oil
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$XOI.X |
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-0.99%     Gold
(
$HUI.X |
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-1.13%  

Dow -12.34 10,443.68
Nasdaq +0.84 1991.06
S&P 500 -0.98 1171.55

The dollar was +0.14 at
84.20

Crude Oil was +0.84 at
54.65

Gold was -0.80 at 424.50

ce=”Arial” size=”2″ face=”Arial”>Volume was 778 million on the NYSE and
775 million on the Nasdaq

Market breadth was positive.

NYSE Issues
Advancing 2036 Up Vol 928
Declining 1280 Down Vol 624
1.59 1.48
Nasdaq
Advancing 1685 Up Vol 923
Declining 1372 Down Vol 665
1.22 1.38

Stocks in the News

Applied Materials (AMAT)
declared a 0.03 dividend and announced a $4 billion stock buyback.

Darden Restaurants
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DRI |
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beat estimates and raised its 2005 view.

Seagate
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was raised to ‘overweight’ at Lehman Brothers.

Pixar
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announced a 2:1 stock split.

Brice Wightman