Today's Market: Stocks Slip South

It's confession season, and investors want to know what other companies will warn. Remedy surges on news of acquisition.
By Kristen French ,

(Updated from 8:38 a.m. EDT)

Without any earnings news or economic data to give rudder to the market today, early trading was quiet and stocks were following through on earnings jitters from Friday.

"We'll probably get a little dip today," said Todd Clark, head of listed trading at

W.R. Hambrecht

. "Friday's weakness may spill over into today. We're not done pulling back a bit.

Juniper's

(JNPR) - Get Report

news wasn't great. And there are concerns about more preannouncements."

The

Dow Jones Industrial Average was off 13 to 10,964 soon after the open. The

Nasdaq Composite dipped 12 to 2203, while the

S&P 500 lost 2 to 1263.

Juniper Networks on Friday warned it would miss its second quarter revenue targets. And as the second-quarter "confession" season enters

week number two, investors may worry they're in for more bad news. During confession season, companies that expect to miss financial performance targets let the market know by "preannouncing." Wall Street is hoping corporate profits will begin to reaccelerate during the fourth quarter of this year, but the outlook for a turnaround is still murky.

Software maker

Remedy

(RMDY)

was jumping 63.4% to $29.97 on news it is being bought by rival

Peregrine

(PRGN)

. Peregrine was off 15.8% to $24.24.

Several other tech names were gaining in early trading, including

Realnetworks

(RNWK) - Get Report

and

Foundry Networks

(FDRY)

.

Robertson Stephens

raised its 2001 and 2002 earnings estimates on the company this morning and set a price target of $21.50.

Ford

(F) - Get Report

was higher in preopen trading after

Salomon Smith Barney

upgraded the stock to buy from neutral this morning.

And Juniper, which sparked a selloff Friday with an

earnings warning, was 3% lower to $36.78 soon after the open.

Credit Suisse First Boston

and

Robertson Stephens

this morning cut their 2001 and 2002 earnings estimates on the company.

Juniper has plenty of company in the confessions department. So far this confession season, earnings preannouncements from the major players have been mostly negative. Computer server maker

Sun Microsystems

(SUNW) - Get Report

, PC maker

Hewlett-Packard

(HWP)

, financial powerhouse

J.P. Morgan Chase

(JPM) - Get Report

, networkers

Broadcom

(BRCM)

and

3Com

(COMS)

, handheld device maker

Handspring

(HAND)

and chipmaker

Lattice Semiconductor

(LSCC) - Get Report

are among those that have warned they would miss second-quarter targets.

Buoyed for most of last week by encouraging works from

Intel

(INTC) - Get Report

and

Xilinx

(XLNX) - Get Report

, the indices wiped out Friday after Juniper warned and a technical problem forced a halt in trading for 85 minutes on the

New York Stock Exchange.

Last week, the Dow dipped 0.1%, while the S&P 500 rose 0.3% and the Nasdaq climbed 3.1%.

Meanwhile, stocks are trading at the top of a narrow trading range they've been in since early May, suggesting they might not have much room to move higher. The Dow is just 2% above where it started the year, but 17% higher since hitting its March 22 low of 9389.48. The Nasdaq is down 10% year to date, but ahead 35% after hitting a two-year low of 1638.80 on April 4.

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Bonds/Economy

Treasury prices were strong this morning after slipping Friday.

The benchmark 10-year

Treasury note was lately up 9/32 to 97 16/32, while yields had slipped to 5.333%. Prices on the 30-year note were climbing 12/32 to 95 5/32, and yielding 5.719%.

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International

European stocks were mixed in morning trading, with strength in

Deutsche Telekom

(DT) - Get Report

and oil stocks. London's

FTSE 100

was showing minor losses, lately down 0.58% to 5916. The

CAC-40

in Paris was gaining just 0.17% and Frankfurt's

Xetra Dax

was moving 0.48% higher.

The euro was lately trading at $0.8464. The dollar was trading at 121.66 yen.

Stocks tumbled in major Asian markets overnight. Tokyo's

Nikkei 225

closed down 203.74 points, or 1.52%, to 13,226.48 as investors fretted over weak data on the nation's gross domestic product growth and tech earnings worries in the U.S. The Nikkei is now trading just above an eight-week low that was hit last Tuesday. Hong Kong's

Hang Seng

closed down 133.40, or 0.97%, to 13,675.49.

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