Tuesday, September 07, 2004

Tuesday Close

S&P 500 1,121.30 +.69%
NASDAQ 1,858.56 +.76%


Leading Sectors
Homebuilders +3.45%
I-Banks +2.69%
Disk Drives +2.38%

Lagging Sectors
Restaurants -.45%
Oil Service -1.10%
Semis -1.14%

Other
Crude Oil 43.17 -.32%
Natural Gas 4.87 +1.77%
Gold 400.10 +.18%
Base Metals 106.80 +1.07%
U.S. Dollar 89.23 -.37%
10-Yr. T-note Yield 4.24% -1.23%
VIX 14.07 +1.15%
Put/Call .85 -16.67%
NYSE Arms .95 -5.0%

After-hours Movers
MYL +4.27% after saying billionaire Carl Icahn holds a 6.8% stake and plans to oppose the company's purchase of King Pharmaceuticals.
CYMI +4.79% on bargain-hunting after reiterated 3Q outlook.
MAMA +10.65% after announcing a 600,000 share buyback.
MCK -7.32% after lowering 1st half outlook and maintaining full-year guidance.
TLAB +14.04% after reducing its takeover offer for AFCI to $1.5 billion.

Recommendations
Goldman Sachs reiterated Outperform on EMC, DIS, UST, FSL, STZ and KO.

After-hours News
U.S. stocks rose today, pushing the S&P 500 to a two-month high, as falling oil prices, declining interest rates and pro-business political rhetoric boosted investor optimism. After the close, Costco Wholesale Corp. plans to open its first Australian store next year, the Australian Financial Review reported. Amvescap Plc's U.S. mutual-fund units, Invesco Funds Group and AIM Investments, reached a $450 million settlement with federal and state complaints of improper trading, Bloomberg said. Neiman Marcus Group said 4th quarter earnings almost tripled as shoppers bought more designer dresses and handbags, Bloomberg said. Coach, the largest U.S. seller of luxury-leather goods, said 1Q earning will beat analyst expectations, Bloomberg said. Prudential Financial's Ed Yardeni, one of the most bullish strategists on Wall Street, left the firm to join Oak Associates, a money manager that overseas more than $8 billion. Republican Senator McCain and Democratic Senator Lieberman introduced a bill to implement the findings of the panel that investigated the 9/11 terrorist attacks, including the appointment of a national intelligence director, Bloomberg reported. Tyco International said it repurchased $350 million of convertible bonds and will take a charge of about $167 million in the fiscal fourth quarter for the purchase as it works to reduce net debt to $10 billion, Bloomberg reported.

BOTTOM LINE: The Portfolio finished substantially higher today as my gaming, internet, telecom equipment and homebuilding longs rose. I took profits in a few of my retail and restaurant longs and added a few technology longs in the afternoon, thus leaving the Portfolio 125% net long. One of my new longs is OSTK and I am using a $31 stop-loss on this position. The overall tone of the market was pretty good today as afternoon profit-taking proved fleeting, most sectors rose, volume improved and small-caps outperformed. Greenspan's upcoming comments should further boost investor optimism for accelerating U.S. economic growth.

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