Friday, Oct. 15, 1999

Woo hoo! Friday nights are a blast in after-hours trading! Okay, so trading is light and Egghead and Zany Brainy are the most actives. Still, it's a pretty good time.

Author:: Eileen Kinsella
Publish date:: Oct 15, 1999 8:18 PM EDT

After-Hours Markets

Don't go looking for the

MarketXT

after-hours leaders: That exchange doesn't trade on Friday nights. That makes

Island ECN

the only ballgame in town. Unfortunately, that ballgame is an

Expos

game against the

Pirates

. Trading was light.

The most actively traded stocks were

Egghead.com

(EGGS)

and

Zany Brainy

(ZANY)

Island ECN, owned by Datek Online, offers trading, mainly in Nasdaq-listed stocks, from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. EDT. Prior to Sept. 15 Island offered trading from 8 a.m. to 5:15 p.m. EDT

Eric Gillin

Day-Session Report

Markets

Stocks reversed a modest rebound to end the day on a dismal note. Cautionary comments from

Fed

Chairman

Alan Greenspan

last night and a stronger-than-expected

Producer Price Index

this morning sank major proxies. The

Dow Jones Industrial Average

shed 266.9 points to 10,019, flirting with a key psychological support level. The

Nasdaq Composite Index

dropped 75 to 2731.

The big European indices closed lower, with France's

CAC

off 1.3% while Germany's

Xetra Dax

fell 0.7%. London's

FTSE

sank 2.2%

Asian markets closed down as Hong Kong's

Hang Seng

dropped 187.74, or 1.5%, to 12299.08 while Tokyo's

Nikkei

fell 178.69, or 1%, to 17601.57.

Mergers, acquisitions and joint ventures

Autobytel.com

(ABTL)

announced it is buying privately held

A.I.N. Corp.

, owner of

CarSmart.com

, for 1.8 million shares and $3 million in cash.

Enron's

(ENE)

energy-services division entered into a $1.5 billion total energy-management pact with

Simon Property Group's

(SPG) - Get Report

Simon Brand Ventures

business initiative.

Proxicom

(PXCM)

said

Intel

(INTC) - Get Report

bought an equity stake in the company. Intel bought the stake through a secondary offering of 3.6 million shares at $52.38 per share earlier in October.

Earnings/revenue reports and previews

Archer-Daniels-Midland

(ADM) - Get Report

reported first-quarter earnings of 6 cents a share, well below the seven-analyst estimate of 12 cents and below the year-ago operating net of 9 cents.

Caterpillar

(CAT) - Get Report

posted third-quarter earnings of 61 cents a share, a penny ahead of the 20-analyst estimate but down from the year-ago 92 cents.

Dominion Resources

(D) - Get Report

reported third-quarter earnings of $1.31 a share, above the 15-analyst estimate of $1.25 and up from $1.14 a year ago.

FPL Group

(FPL) - Get Report

posted third-quarter earnings of $1.70 a share, in line with the 17-analyst estimate and up from $1.66 a year ago.

Fifth Third Bancorp

(FITB) - Get Report

reported third-quarter earnings of 62 cents a share, in line with the 14-analyst estimate and up from a year-ago 53 cents. The company said the share amounts reflect a 3-for-2 stock split declared March 17, 1998, and distributed April 15, 1998.

Haverty Furniture

(HVT) - Get Report

posted third-quarter earnings of 31 cents a share, above the four-analyst estimate of 29 cents and better than a year-ago 20 cents.

Idexx

(IDXX) - Get Report

posted third-quarter earnings of 21 cents a share, in line with the three-analyst estimate and up from 15 cents a year ago.

Knight-Ridder

(KRI)

posted third-quarter earnings of 78 cents a share, 4 cents ahead of the 13-analyst estimate and up from the year-ago 58 cents.

Legg Mason

(LM) - Get Report

posted second-quarter earnings of 47 cents a share, below the four-analyst estimate of 52 cents, but up from 37 cents a year ago.

Credit Suisse First Boston

said

Microsoft

(MSFT) - Get Report

is on track to meet its expectation of 36 cents a share in the first quarter, which is above the 26-analyst estimate of 34 cents according to

First Call/Thomson Financial

Newport News Shipbuilding

(NNS)

posted third-quarter earnings of 58 cents a share, a penny better than the five-analyst estimate of 57 cents and up from a year-ago 46 cents.

Rogers

(ROG) - Get Report

posted third-quarter earnings of 58 cents a share, above the single-analyst estimate of 45 cents and up from a year-ago 34 cents.

Tower Automotive

(TWR)

reported third-quarter earnings of 44 cents a share, in line with the 12-analyst estimate, and up from 36 cents a year ago.

Offerings and stock actions

A number of initial public offerings did well despite the market downturn today.

Cysive

(CYSV)

soared 20 5/8, or 121.3%, to 37 3/4.

Women.com

(WOMN) - Get Report

climbed 8 5/8, or 86.3%, to 18 1/2. Shares of

QuickLogic

(QUIK) - Get Report

jumped 5, or 50%, to 15 1/8.

Starmedia

(STRM) - Get Report

said it sold 6 million shares of its common stock at $34 a share. The lead underwriter is

Goldman Sachs

Veritas

(VRTS) - Get Report

set a 3-for-2 stock split, payable on Nov. 19 to shareholders of record Nov. 2. Veritas posted third-quarter earnings of 21 cents a share, beating the 20-analyst estimate of 17 cents and the year-ago 12 cents.

Analyst actions

Merrill Lynch

upgraded

Boeing

(BA) - Get Report

to near-term accumulate from near-term neutral.

Morgan Stanley Dean Witter

added

Coca-Cola Femsa

(KOF) - Get Report

to its fresh money buys list and removed

Petrobas

Morgan Stanley Dean Witter raised its 1999 earnings estimate on

General Motors

(GM) - Get Report

to $8.50 a share from $8.34, and reiterated a neutral rating.

Paine Webber

said it cut

IPC Holdings

(IPCR)

to attractive from buy.

Robertson Stephens

downgraded shares of

Rambus

(RMBS) - Get Report

to market performer from long-term attractive and slashed its 2000 earnings estimate to 47 cents a share from 75 cents.

Morgan Stanley raised its rating on

Sprint PCS

(PCS)

to strong buy from neutral.

J.P.Morgan

started

Schering-Plough

(SGP)

with a buy rating and set a 12-month price target of 62 for the stock.

Salomon Smith Barney

upgraded

Southwest Airlines

(LUV) - Get Report

to buy from neutral and set a 12-month price target of 23. Salomon raised its 2000 earnings estimates to $1.07 a share from $1.03.

Credit Suisse First Boston

and

Lehman Brothers

raised their earnings estimates on Sun Microsystems after it reported better-than-expected earnings last night.

Banc of America

upped Sun to buy from market perform.

Miscellany

Starwood Hotels

(HOT)

said it sold a stake in the

Grande Bretagne

hotel in Greece for $186 million, and expects to record a $178 million pretax gain.

The Heard on the Street column in

The Wall Street Journal

reports that

Neuberger Berman

(NEU) - Get Report

suspended money manager Jack Ferraro. It is conducting an internal investigation of payments he received from

Showscan Entertainment

(SHOW)

and three small companies. In 1995, Ferraro lined up $7 million for Showscan through a Swiss bank, in return for warrants for 100,000 shares of Showscan, but did not disclose his payment to his clients or to Neuberger, the story says.

The Inside Wall Street column in

Business Week

, written by Gene Marcial, quotes a senior

Tyco International

(TYC)

executive as saying the company -- which held talks with

C.R. Bard

(BCR)

last year -- is "still very interested" in the company. The executive wouldn't say if talks were going on, however, the column said. The column also said some money pros are wagering that Tyco's going to acquire C.R. Bard. Tyco has been one of the story stocks of the week in the market.

TheStreet.com

wrote about Tyco

yesterday.