Market Update: After Indecisive Morning, Stocks Gain
The
Nasdaq Composite and the
Dow were getting their footing on the upside after a morning of indecision.
Some big tech stocks, including
Cisco
(CSCO) - Get Report
,
Qualcomm
(QCOM) - Get Report
and semiconductor manufacturer
Intel
(INTC) - Get Report
, were bouncing today.
But they were fighting the native tide of one of the Nasdaq's most actively traded stocks:
Network Appliance
(NTAP) - Get Report
was 16.8% lower after the networking data storage company announced earnings that beat estimates by a penny. But it also forecast slower sales growth. On the news,
Bear Stearns
downgraded the stock to attractive from buy.
Software company
Oracle
(ORCL) - Get Report
edged Network Appliance out to be the days's most active stock on the Nasdaq. It was rallying back from recent lows and lately was up 2.2% the day after jumping on news that it would team up with
Citigroup
(C) - Get Report
to integrate each others' technologies and services.
And have you looked at
MP3
(MPPP)
recently? The stock jumped 56%. Okay, so that translates into a gain of only $2.25 to bring its stock to $6.25. Still. It was shooting up after announcing that it would restart its my.mp3.com service with a pay option by the end of November. Yesterday, the company was ordered to pay $53.4 million to
Universal
as a result of a copyright infringement case.
TheStreet.com/NYTimes.com
joint newsroom
covered the lawsuit in a separate story.
So who's not happy today?
Hewlett Packard
(HWP)
was giving back yesterday's gains. Hewlett, a computer and imaging company, has taken quite a ride since it announced on Monday that it missed earnings estimates by a dime. It rebounded Tuesday as investors decided tech stocks looked oversold.
Battered retailers have been in focus this week as a flurry of companies report their third-quarter earnings.
Wal-Mart
(WMT) - Get Report
was up again today despite its downward tone about its
fourth-quarter earnings. The
S&P Retail Index
was up 1.4%. Wal-Mart was 4.4% higher.
But activity could get more interesting as the afternoon progresses. The
Federal Open Market Committee is meeting to decide the direction of interest rates. While no one is expecting the Fed to change interest rates, it is less certain what the committee will say about the
risks of inflation going forward.
Sector Watch
With no real resolution on the election front, many stocks expected to benefit from a Bush win of the White House -- such as drugs and tobacco -- were pulling back today. The
American Stock Exchange Pharmaceutical Index
, which tracks the drug sector, and the
American Stock Exchange Tobacco Index
were both lower.
Paper stocks had strength again today. The
Philadelphia Stock Exchange Forest & Paper Products Index
was rising 2.6% on consolidation fever.
Georgia-Pacific
(GP)
said yesterday that it expected its $7.5 billion bid for
Fort James
(FJ)
to close "very soon" after its recently extended regulatory review. Also yesterday,
Weyerhaeuser
(WY) - Get Report
confirmed that it had financing for its proposed acquisition of
Willamette Industries
(WLL) - Get Report
.
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Bonds/Economy
Bonds were stronger today in the hope of good news on interest rates from today's
Fed policy meeting. There is a minority opinion that the Fed may move to a neutral bias about inflation, which suggests there would no further interest rate increases in the near term.
The benchmark 10-year
Treasury note is at 100 4/32, up 9/32, to yield 5.734%.
The 30-year
Treasury bond is at 106 11/32, up 8/32, to yield 5.800%.
Historically low interest rates are still helping to keep consumers interested in the housing market. The
Mortgage Applications Survey
(
definition |
chart |
source
) for the week ended November 10 rose 6% to 690.4 from 651.2 in the previous week.
Business inventories
(
definition |
chart |
) for September edged up 0.1% after a rise of 0.7% in August. A rise of 0.3% had been expected. This was the slowest pace of increas in nearly two years. While stockpiling slowed, sales didn't. Businesses reported sales of $905 billion, as sales grew by 0.4% for the second month in a row (on revised August figures).
October's
industrial production
(
definition |
chart |
) index fell 0.1%, below expectation of a rise of 0.2%, after a 0.4% increase in September. A decline in auto production was the major factor.
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