Nasdaq Rising, Blue Chips Bobbing Along
Updated from 12:14 p.m. EDT
Positive earnings news from the tech sector gave legs to the
Nasdaq Composite
Friday, while blue chips turned in a wishy-washy performance as investors found little fodder to encourage much buying.
The
Dow Jones Industrial Average
was up 9 points to 12,655, and the
S&P 500
was rising 3 points to 1402. The Nasdaq climbed 15 points to 2553.
"I don't know that a lot of players want to make big moves ahead of next week's reports," said Jim Paulsen, chief investment strategist with Wells Capital Management. "Today's reports weren't too exciting."
Monday will see the release of nationwide manufacturing data from the Institute for Supply Management and the Labor Department's all-important monthly employment numbers.
Paulsen believes high oil prices are still substantially affecting moves in equities, even though futures were only firming nominally lately, ticking up 34 cents to $126.96 a barrel. At the same time, gas prices at the pump bounced by a penny to another all-time high of $3.962 a gallon nationwide, according to AAA. That's a 35-cent hike in the last month alone, and represents nearly a 25% surge from a year ago.
Paulsen pointed out that the market continues to deal with assorted other pressures, as well, as the S&P flirts with the 1400 level and the 10-year Treasury note is trading above 4% for the first time this year.
Recently, the 10-year bond was up 9/32 in price, pulling the yield down to 4.04%. The 30-year note added 18/32 in price, yielding 4.71%.
On the corporate side,
Dell
(DELL) - Get Report
beat expectations on both the top and bottom lines in the most recent quarter, signaling that the computer maker is beginning to
reap the benefits of its turnaround plan
. Earnings totaled $784 million, or 38 cents a share, on sales of $16.07 billion. Shares jumped 7%.
Staying in tech,
Marvell Technology
(MRVL) - Get Report
shares surged more than 20% after the chipmaker swung to a fiscal first-quarter profit and brought in enough revenue to
as well as the average analyst estimate. JPMorgan and Oppenheimer each upped the stock to buy-equivalent ratings.
Also swinging to a profit was software concern
Novell
(NOVL)
, which furthermore
and reaffirmed its full-year sales guidance of $940 million to $970 million. The stock was adding 4.3%.
Elsewhere, jewelry seller
Tiffany
(TIF) - Get Report
padded its full-year earnings outlook and
for the most recent quarter with a better profit than last year. Shares were up 2.8%.
But
J. Crew
(JCG)
was a big loser, tanking some 20% after the clothes retailer shaved its full-year profit guidance, having ratcheted down its expectations for same-store sales growth -- those from stores open a year or more. Earnings leaped some 24% in the fiscal first quarter, but Citigroup and Wachovia each downgraded the stock, and Oppenheimer lowered its price target.
Away from earnings, the CEOs of United Airlines and
U.S. Airways
(LCC)
confirmed, in messages to their employees, that they are suspending merger talks. News broke earlier this week that the talks appeared to be breaking down. United operator
UAL Corp.
(UAUA)
ticked down 0.6%, and U.S. Airways shares sank 4.9%.
As for the day's economic data,, the Commerce Department reported that personal spending and personal income growth each rose 0.2% in April from the prior month, essentially what economists had expected. The March income figure was revised upward by one-tenth of a percentage point. Core personal consumption expenditures also matched expectations last month, ticking up 0.1% compared with 0.2% in March.
Tony Crescenzi, chief bond market strategist with Miller Tabak and contributor to
RealMoney.com
, a sister site to
TheStreet.com
, wrote that these data "indicate sluggishness in the U.S. economy, although perhaps not as much as feared. The inflation news accompanying the report will be taken positively in light of recent inflation worries."
He added that incomes are doing better now than in the 2001 recession, which saw growth of only a 2.9% in its fourth month, and 2.5% in the fifth.
Meanwhile, the Chicago purchasing managers' index put Midwest factory activity at 49.1, indicating a slight contraction from the break-even level of 50, but improving a bit from 48.3 in April. Economists were looking for 48.5.
Also, the University of Michigan nudged its May consumer-confidence numbers marginally higher to 59.8. Still, that was nearly a three-point decline from April.
Back in commodities, gold futures were up $8.90 to $890.60 a barrel. The U.S. dollar weakened by 0.4% against the euro to $1.5563 and dipped 0.1% against the yen at 105.42.
In notable analyst actions, Friedman Billings brought
AnnTaylor's
(ANN)
rating up to outperform from market perform, after which shares climbed 1.9%. Shares of
Nasdaq OMX
rose 2.5% on a Lehman Brothers upgrade to overweight.
Piper Jaffray stamped a buy rating on
Big Lots
(BIG) - Get Report
a day after the discount retailer boosted its earnings outlook, but the analyst cut
Costco
(COST) - Get Report
to neutral from buy. Costco beat analyst estimates with its own earnings report yesterday but also said it might not be able to meet current-quarter targets.
Big Lots nevertheless recently crept up 0.9% as Costco sank 2.2%.
Overseas, the Nikkei 225 in Tokyo soared 1.5% overnight, and Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index gained 0.6%. In Europe, London's FTSE 100 was off 0.2%, but Germany's Xetra Dax rose 0.6%. The Paris Cac moved up 0.8%.