Tuesday, January 18, 2005

Wednesday Watch

Earnings of Note
Company/Estimate
BK/.43
COF/.99
EBAY/.34
FFIV/.21
FAST/.40
GM/.91
JPM/.68
LU/.04
MACR/.21
PFE/.59
QLGC/.47
QCOM/.27
LUV/.08
RDC/.18
SYMC/.22
WM/.75
WB/.98

Splits
AGP 2-for-1
CRDN 3-for-2

Economic Data
Consumer Price Index for December estimated unch. versus a .2% increase in November.
CPI Ex Food & Energy for December estimated up .2% versus a .2% increase in November.
Housing Starts for December estimated at 1905K versus 1771K in November.
Building Permits for December estimated at 1985K versus 2028K in November.
Initial Jobless Claims for last week estimated at 345K versus 367K the prior week.
Continuing Claims estimated at 2675K versus 2631K prior.
Fed's Beige Book.

Recommendations
Goldman Sachs reiterated Outperform on MMM and YHOO.

Late-Night News
Asian indices are mostly lowers on continuing fears over slowing growth in the region. Singapore Airlines hopes that Australia may grant it unlimited access to routes to the US sooner than 12 to 18 months, the Business Times reported. China's Huawei Technologies is tipped to win a contract over Motorola and Ericsson for the construction of CAT Telecom's $332 million mobile-phone network in Thailand, the Nation reported. Kraft Foods plans to double its purchases of certified green coffee from Latin American nations this year, Reuters reported. India's inflation, which slowed to the least in seven months, continues to ease, CNBC reported. Fannie Mae today cut its quarterly dividend to 26 cents a share from 52 cents to conserve capital after making accounting errors, Bloomberg reported. IBM and Yahoo! posted profit and sales that beat analysts' estimates, spurring optimism that other US technology companies reporting this month will follow suit, Bloomberg reported. A Harvard University committee condemned university President, and former US Treasury Secretary during the Clinton administration, Lawrence H. Summers' recent remarks implying women were inferior to men in math and science, the NY Times reported. Texas Instruments won its first order from Samsung Electronics for a processor to run digital cameras in handsets after a two-year effort to get the business, Bloomberg reported.

Late-Night Trading
Asian Indices are -.50%. to unch. on average.
S&P 500 indicated +.03%.
NASDAQ 100 indicated unch.

BOTTOM LINE: I expect U.S. equities to open modestly higher on strong earnings reports, decelerating inflation and better economic reports. The Portfolio is 100% net long heading into tomorrow.

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