Wednesday, May 04, 2005

Stocks Finish Sharply Higher on Increasing Optimism

Indices
S&P 500 1,175.65 +1.25%
DJIA 10,384.64 +1.24%
NASDAQ 1,962.23 +1.51%
Russell 2000 595.26 +1.84%
DJ Wilshire 5000 11,562.16 +1.27%
S&P Barra Growth 567.16 +.97%
S&P Barra Value 604.15 +1.53%
Morgan Stanley Consumer 584.60 +.78%
Morgan Stanley Cyclical 714.08 +1.69%
Morgan Stanley Technology 446.44 +1.63%
Transports 3,519.69 +1.65%
Utilities 369.48 +.11%
Put/Call .95 +13.10%
NYSE Arms .50 +53.37%
Volatility(VIX) 13.85 -4.68%
ISE Sentiment 134.00 +8.06%
US Dollar 83.98 -.63%
CRB 300.97 +.43%

Futures Spot Prices
Crude Oil 50.32 +.38%
Unleaded Gasoline 147.15 +.35%
Natural Gas 6.64 +.23%
Heating Oil 145.65 +.14%
Gold 430.60 +.14%
Base Metals 121.30 -1.14%
Copper 143.25 +.24%
10-year US Treasury Yield 4.18% +.38%

Leading Sectors
Steel +2.11%
Airlines +2.09%
Gold & Silver +1.10%

Lagging Sectors
Oil Tankers -2.14%
Energy -2.33%
Oil Service -2.63%

Evening Review
Detailed Market Summary
Market Gauges
Daily ETF Performance
Style Performance
Market Wrap CNBC Video(bottom right)
S&P 500 Gallery View
Economic Calendar
Timely Economic Charts
GuruFocus.com
PM Market Call
After-hours Movers
Real-time/After-hours Stock Quote
In Play

Afternoon Recommendations
Goldman Sachs:
- Reiterated Outperform on BC, SBUX, WON and DEX.

Afternoon/Evening Headlines
Bloomberg:
- The FBI is probing the US insurance industry to determine whether insurance fraud is “the next big one,” following the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s and the corporate fraud scandals that began in 2001.
- Kirk Kerkorian, who shook up Chrysler with a hostile takeover bid a decade ago, disclosed he is building an 8.8% stake in GM, sending GM shares to their biggest gain in more than 40 years.
- Lazard Ltd. raised $854.6 million in an IPO today.

BOTTOM LINE: The Portfolio finished substantially higher today on gains in my Internet, Gaming and Computer longs. I did not trade in the afternoon, thus leaving the Portfolio 100% net long. The tone of the market was positive as the advance/decline finished at its daily highs, every sector rose and volume was average. Measures of investor anxiety were mostly lower. Overall, today’s market action was very positive considering the bounce in energy prices. The S&P 500 has now broken out of its recent trading range to the upside. Today’s action was likely the result of more investors coming around to the view that we are moving to sustainable less inflationary growth. The positive sentiment change towards GM was also a major factor today.

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