WMT Earnings, Plus, AMAT Guidance
Stocks
are mixed on disappointing housing numbers. Applied
Materials
(
AMAT |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) reported higher
first-quarter income of $82 million, with revenue rising to $1.56 billion and
orders up by 30%. AMAT expects another 30% increase in current-quarter orders
with earnings reaching 7 cents per share on revenue of $1.29 billion. Chip-maker
OmniVision
(
OVTI |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) posted earnings of 28 cents a share on revenue of
$94.5 million, +22%. The company expects sales to reach $98 million with
earnings of about 30 cents a share. Retailer Wal-Mart
(
WMT |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) reported
earnings of $2.72 billion, + 8.4%, on sales of $75.2 billion. Former Enron CEO
Jeff Skilling was indicted Thursday in Houston on 42 counts including securities
fraud and making false statements. His attorney Daniel Petrocelli said the
government was making false accusations against his client.
| Dow | +69.86 |
10741.76 |
| S&P 500 |
+5.46 | 1157.25 |
| Nasdaq | +6.99 | 2083.46 |
The day’s leading sectors are
Disk Drives
(
DDX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) +2.24%, Chemicals
(
CEX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) +1.79%,
Semis
(
SOX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) +1.67%, and Airlines
(
XAL.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) +0.99%.
Weak today are Networking
(
NWX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) -0.79%, and Gold & Silver
(
XAU.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) -0.51%,
Economic news releases included
lower initial claims at 344K.
10-year Notes are +5 at
114 255
The dollar
is +0.04 at 86.06
Gold is -1.50 at 411.30
Crude oil is +0.55 at
36.00
The euro
is -1.47 at 126.80
Volume is 680,000,000 on
the NYSE, and 990,000,000 on the Nasdaq.
Market breadth is positive.
| NYSE | Issues | |
| Advancing | 1725 | Up Vol 434 |
| Declining | 1392 | Down Vol 224 |
| Ratio | 1.20 | 1.19 |
| Nasdaq | ||
| Advancing | 1626 | Up Vol 507 |
| Declining | 1390 | Dow Vol 424 |
| Ratio | 1.14 | 1.19 |
Top Dow stocks are:
International Paper [IP|IP],
+2.62% at 43.99, Hewlett Packard
(
HPQ |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating), +2.08% at 24.08, Du Pont
[DD|DD] +0.89% at
46.06, and Kodak [EK|EK],
+1.82% at 29.31.
Stocks in the news:
Target
(
TGT |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) posted strong
earnings of $832 million or 91 cents on revenue of $15.57 billion. Higher
margins offset higher expenses with same-store sales up 4.9%.
Intuit
(
INTU |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) posted an increase
of 16% in earnings on revenue of $636.3 million. Earnings came in at $149.1
million. For the next quarter, INTU guided higher at $700 million, or about
$1.14 cents a share.
Telecommunications maker Qwest
(
Q |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
reported a net loss of $307 million as revenue dropped 5.6% to $3.5 billion due
to competition from local voice and wireless services.
For the first time, Bluefly
(
BFLY |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
reported a net income, with sales rising 42%. Earnings came in at $111,000 on
sales of $14 million