Wednesday Close

S&P 500 1,124.09 +.53%
NASDAQ 1,995.63 +.86%

Leading Sectors
Wireless +3.38%
Hospitals +2.69%
Airlines +2.46%

Lagging Sectors
Fashion -1.32%
Papers -1.43%
Nanotechnology -1.54%

Other
Crude Oil 35.82 +.25%
Natural Gas 5.61 +.41%
Gold 391.70 +.08%
Base Metals 108.32 -5.30%
U.S. Dollar 91.08 -.04%
10-Yr. Long-Bond Yield 4.42% -.72%
VIX 15.60 -6.42%
Put/Call .70 -12.50%
NYSE Arms .52 -57.02%

After-hours Movers
JNPR -7.08% on profit-taking after beating 1Q estimates and raising 2Q guidance.
KLAC -8.51% after beating 3Q estimates, but disappointing 4Q guidance.
ERES +4.35% after beating 1Q estimates, announcing 3-for-2 stock split, 500,000 share buyback and raising 2Q/04 forecast.
EYE +4.88% after beating 1Q estimates and raising 04 guidance.
ASCL -17.57% after missing 1Q estimates substantially and lowering 2Q guidance.
SSTI -7.72% on profit-taking after beating 1Q estimates and raising 2Q guidance.
PLXS -10.97% on profit-taking after meeting 2Q estimates and raising 3Q guidance.
CTXS -11.95% after beating 1Q estimates, raising 2Q sales estimate, but lowering 2Q profit forecast.
AFCO -5.71% after missing 3Q estimates and weak guidance.

Recommendations
Goldman Sachs reiterated Outperform on UTX, SKYW, KO, RCL and Underperform on PLXS and OMI.

After-hours News
U.S. stocks finished higher Wednesday as Fed Chairman Greenspan said the U.S. economy is vigorous and broad-based inflation was not a problem as unit labor costs remain subdued. After the close, The Street.Com reported that Sony is in advance talks to join two buyout firms in a $5B acquisition of movie studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. eBay said first-quarter earning surged 92% as more people listed items for sale and used its PayPal e-mail payment service. eBay also raised 04 profit and revenue forecasts, Bloomberg reported. Qualcomm said second-quarter profit more than quadrupled on surging demand for phones based on CDMA technology, Bloomberg reported. China conceded to U.S. demands to crackdown on the piracy of software and movies and abandon a standard for wireless encryption opposed by Intel and other chip companies, Bloomberg reported.

BOTTOM LINE: The Portfolio rose slightly today as one of my shorts fell substantially in afternoon trading, offsetting small loses elsewhere. I added to a couple of short positions in the afternoon and took profits in a few longs, bringing the Portfolio to a market neutral position(longs-shorts=0). I still feel that the market, specifically technology stocks, may have more work to do on the downside in the short-run. Complacency by investors is still too high. On a more positive note, China's talking down its economy and threatening to raise interest rates seems to be working. China's insatiable demand for raw materials has been one of the key drivers of commodity price increases. Commodity prices, as measured by the CRB Index, broke down through their 6-month uptrend line today. A rising U.S. dollar also pressures commodity prices. This should help the U.S. economy later in the year as investors begin to realize that a substantial rise in inflation is not in the cards for the foreseeable future.