Market Update: Oracle Beats the Street; Dow Sags, Nasdaq Ends Up

(Updated from 4:10 p.m. EDT)

Oracle(ORCL Quote) announced it had beat the Street's earnings estimate by four cents by reporting 17 cents a share for its fiscal first-quarter results versus the 13-cent estimate of 28 analysts, according to First Call/Thomson Financial.

The company also announced a 2-for-1 split.

---

Tech stocks captured buyer's attention today, giving blue-chip industrials the short end of the stick.

The Nasdaq came off of its highs to end the day up 20 to 3913.

Conexant(CNXT Quote), a modem chip maker, bounced 42%, after it set a spinoff its Internet infrastructure unit. The company will have an IPO in January for the business.

The Philadelphia Stock Exchange Semiconductor Index was down fractionally.

Meanwhile, the Dow Jones Industrial Average skidded 95 to 11,087.

Currency issues are plagued multinational companies since the effects of the dollar's strength against the weak euro is beginning to show up in third-quarter profits. McDonald's(MCD Quote) was off 1.4%, after hitting a new intra-day trading low of $26.75. It said yesterday that the euro will hurt upcoming earnings. This morning, Banc of America cut its rating on the hamburger giant to market perform from a buy.

Colgate was sinking more than 14.7% on a downgrade from Deutsche Banc Alex Brown. Analyst Andrew Shore sliced his rating after management said that the weaker euro and higher petroleum cost would dent the third-quarter by 5 cents a share.

TheStreet.com recently wrote about the euro's impact on corporate profits .

Proctor & Gamble (PG Quote)and Coca-Cola(KO Quote) were shaved 14 points off of the Dow.

Sector Watch

Elsewhere in tech, TheStreet.com Internet Index added on 2.5%, with Yahoo(YHOO Quote) and Amazon.com(AMZN Quote) participating in the rally.

The American Stock Exchange Oil Service Index slid 1.1%, with losses from ExxonMobil(XOM Quote) and Chevron(CHV Quote). The group fell back slightly after the higher price of crude oil sent the index soaring this month.

The Philadelphia Stock Exchange Oil Services Index was also off fractionally, with Haliburton(HAL Quote) heading 0.8% lower.

Back to top

Bonds/Economy

Bonds initially rallied on today's benign economic reports, but the benchmark issue has since given back the gains, as closer examination of the reports revealed them to be less than completely favorable.

The 0.2% drop in the August Producer Price Index, its largest drop in a year and a half, was largely attributable to a 0.2% drop in energy prices and an extraordinary 0.7% drop in food prices. With the more recent rise in oil prices, the drop in energy prices almost certainly won't be repeated in the next PPI report.

Retail sales rose just 0.2% (0.3% excluding autos) in August, but the July results were revised up, making August appear weaker than it otherwise would have.

The benchmark 10-year Treasury note, up as much as 10/32 earlier, was lately down 17/32 to 99 17/32, yielding 5.812%.

Meanwhile the 30-year Treasury bond is rather sharply lower, as traders pile onto a development that emerged yesterday -- the 30-year bond once again yielding more than the 10-year note. By pairing short positions in 30-year bonds with long positions in 10-year notes, traders will be able to profit from additional so-called steepening in that portion of the Treasury yield curve.

Back to top