Tuesday, February 24, 2004

Tuesday Watch

Earnings Announcements
Company/Estimate
VOXX/.14
CCU/.32
ESRX/.85
FD/2.26
FOSL/.55
HRB/.45
HD/.39
IM/.23
OATS/.07

Splits
ACAM 5-for-1

Economic Data
Conference Board Consumer Confidence estimated at 92.0 vs. 96.8 last month.

Recommendations
Goldman Sachs raised estimates for COH and made positive comments. GS also saying that defense stocks are overreacting to the Comanche cancellation. Goldman says tone from 1st day of its tech conference is broadly positive. GS saying VZ is their favorite RBOC and SBC is attractive with a yield of 5.2%. SAP CEO says quarter is tracking to plan. GS says CSCO, JNPR, NT, MOT, CIEN, TLAB and SONS all speak tomorrow. Finally, Goldman expects crude oil to trade down to the mid-$20/bbl range this summer as record levels of production and seasonal declines in demand lead to faster-than-normal stock builds. TheStreet.com is saying AMCC may enter Host Bus Adapter market, hurting EMLX and QLGC.

Late-Night News
Pakistan called on the intl. peacekeeping force in Afghanistan to help secure the border area and stop the movement of suspected Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters, AFP reported. John Varley, CEO of Barclays Plc, says recent merger activity in the U.S. was a "wake up call" for Barclays and other banks to work to keep their place in the market, the Financial Times said. Sony and Sanyo are raising prices on cell-phone batteries due to higher cobalt costs. Taiwan's United Microelectronics is raising prices of semiconductors because production cannot meet demand. Lehman Brothers and Xinhua Financial Network will team up to produce an index tracking the performance of China's domestic bonds. Chickens on a farm in Texas tested positive for a more virulent form of bird flu than was reported last week and are the first such U.S. cases in about 2 decades. MSFT has secured a deal with RSA Security to allow Windows users to access its secure network systems. FleetBoston may be sued as soon as today by regulators for alleged trading abuses in its mutual fund unit.

Late-Night Trading
Asian markets are mostly down, ranging from -.75% to -1.25%.
S&P 500 indicated -.01%.
NASDAQ indicated unch.

BOTTOM LINE: I will likely add a couple of longs on any weakness in the morning as I believe the major averages are due for an oversold bounce, especially technology. The Portfolio is 20% net long currently. Consumer cyclicals should continue to outperform ahead of tax stimulus, better employment and relatively low interest rates. While I expect the averages to bounce, my indicators are still on short-term sell signals. The current consolidation will likely resume later in the week or next week.

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