You Know What Stocks Are Hurt By The Mad Cow Scare — Here’s One That Benefits From It


Stocks finished lower on light
pre-holiday trading.
A case of mad cow
disease was discovered in the state of Washington. The Department of Agriculture
predicted it would be isolated to a small number of cases. Shares of restaurant
that serve beef-related products declined. McDonalds
(
MCD |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
and
Wendy’s

(
WEN |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
both traded 5% lower. Bio-Rad Laboratories
(
BIO |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)

was upgraded by Robert Baird to “outperform.” The company manufactures 50%-60%
of BSE testing kits. Cattle futures implemented a limit down rule to prevent a
sharp drop in price.

AT&T
(
T |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)

plans to freeze management salaries until 2005 in an attempt to reduce costs.

Dow
-32.81

10305.19
S&P 500 -1.98
1994.04
Nasdaq -5.55
1969.23

The day’s leading sectors were
Oil Service Sector [OSX.X|
OSX.X]
+1.72%,
Energy
(
DXE.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
+1.26%,
Amex Gold Bugs [HUI.X|
HUI.X] +1.20%, Oil

(
XOI.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
+1.02%,

Weak today were Airlines
(
XAL.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
-0.79%, and Disk drives
(
DDX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
-0.45%.

Economic news releases included
Durable goods orders that fell 3.1% and jobless claims that
fell by 1,000 to 353,000. New home sales also fell 2.4% to 1.082 million units.

10-year Notes were +225
at 112 205

The dollar
was -0.48 at 87.89

Gold was +1.20 at 412.80

Crude Oil was -0.69 at
33.02

Volume was 515,000,000
on the NYSE, and 635,000,000 on the Nasdaq.

Market breadth was mixed.

NYSE Issues
Advancing 1597 Up Vol
223
Declining 1485 Down Vol 279
Ratio 1.07 1.25
Nasdaq
Advancing 1375 Up Vol
278
Declining 1616 Down Vol
347
Ratio 1.21 1.25

Top Dow stocks were:

GM
(
GM |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
, +2.63% at 53.35,
American Express

(
AXP |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
+0.41% at 47.88, Merck [MRK|
MRK],
+0.37% at 44.94, and Johnson & Johnson [JNJ|
JNJ],
+0.35% at 50.73

Stocks in the news:

Micron Techonology
(
MU |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
reported
earnings of $1.1 million, from $1.11 billion sales for the first quarter of
2004.

California Amplifier
(
CAMP |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
posted
third-quarter income of $3.5 million on revenue of $44.2 million. The company
said it would acquire Vytek for $76.8 million. The acquisition is expected to
diversify its customer base and improve its engineering capability

General Motors
(
GM |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
received an upgrade
from UBS which said it favored GM over Ford. Both GM and Ford
(
F |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
are trading
at 52-week highs.

Home health services provider Gentiva
(
GTIV |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)

raised its earnings outlook for 2004 to 57 to 63 cents per share, and said
revenue would reach $850 million.

bricew@tradingmarkets.com