Preopen Trading: Good News for Semis Signals Positive Open
Timing is everything. After yesterday's blah day on Wall Street, news from the
Semiconductor Industry Association
that semiconductor sales are expected to
grow 37% couldn't have come at a better time.
The news got preopen trading on
Instinet
off to a racing start, with
ASM Lithography
(ASML) - Get ASML Holding N.V. Report
the second-most active stock. It lately was up 38 cents to $27.69 on 70,000 shares.
The news had
Intel
(INTC) - Get Intel Corporation Report
and
Rambus
(RMBS) - Get Rambus Inc. Report
TheStreet Recommends
jumping too.
Also, this morning the recently merged
Terra Lycos
(TRLY)
, which just started trading under that name and the "TRLY" ticker Thursday, was up $1.13 to $24.13 on 172,650 shares this morning, and was the most actively traded stock. Wednesday, European analysts initiated buy ratings on the stock, saying the company was going to be a winner in Europe. The company has continued to expand; its European unit announced overnight that it will buy leading Paris-based Web site MultiMania for $191 million.
Also today,
WorldCom
( WCOM) was making a comeback after being the most popular stock on the
Nasdaq
Wednesday for the wrong reasons. The stock
tumbled after it warned of lower-than-expected earnings and said it would create two tracking stocks.
Early futures action was indicating a flat to positive open.
S&P 500 futures on
Globex
lately were up 6 to 1438, about 6 points above fair value as calculated by
Prudential Securities
.
Nasdaq 100
futures were up 32.5 to 3300, about 1 point below fair value as calculated by
TheStreet.com
.
Europe's major indices were tentatively higher going into midsession, with France's
CAC-40
up 0.1%, Germany's
Xetra Dax
up 0.6% and the U.K.'s
FTSE 100
up 0.2%. Japan's
Nikkei 225
lost 0.2% overnight, while Hong Kong's
Hang Seng
slipped 0.4% (see today's
Asian Markets Update for more).
For Wednesday's postclose trading, see The Night Watch.
