Thursday, April 22, 2004

Thursday Close

S&P 500 1,139.93 +1.41%
NASDAQ 2,032.91 +1.87%


Leading Sectors
Iron/Steel +4.13%
Internet +3.90%
Papers +3.88%

Lagging Sectors
Semis +.36%
Fashion -.03%
Disk Drives -.80%

Other
Crude Oil 36.79 +.22%
Natural Gas 5.62 -.05%
Gold 394.40 +.13%
Base Metals 107.20 -1.03%
U.S. Dollar 90.71 -.44%
10-Yr. Long-Bond Yield 4.38% -.91%
VIX 14.61 -6.35%
Put/Call .63 -10.0%
NYSE Arms .73 +40.38%

After-hours Movers
MSFT +4.89% after beating 3Q estimates, raising 05 earnings and lowering 05 sales forecasts.
BRCM +5.39% after beating 1Q estimates and raising 3Q guidance.
GLW +9.07% after beating 1Q estimates and raising 2Q guidance.
CLS +10.75% after beating 1Q estimates and raising 2Q forecast.
MCHP +6.60% after beating 4Q estimates, raising 1Q forecast and announcing 2.5M buyback.
GILD +7.23% after significantly beating 1Q forecast.
OHP -9.32% after WC ended talks to purchase the company.
ELX -6.79% after meeting 3Q estimates and lowering 4Q guidance.
PLCM -4.31% on profit-taking after beating 1Q estimates.

Recommendations
Goldman Sachs reiterated Outperform on MERQ, MSFT, AMGN, CAH, UPS,ACS and Underperform on VRSN, SGP and RKY.

After-hours News
U.S. stocks finished sharply higher Wednesday as numerous corporate earnings reports were better-than-expected, CEO's made positive comments regarding their company's outlook and interest rates fell. After the close, Microsoft CFO Connors said, "Overall corporate IT spending continues to improve and we expect to see healthy demand through the end of the year." Microsoft reported a 17% increase in fiscal third-quarter revenue, beating analyst estimates for both the top and bottom lines, Bloomberg reported. Corning CFO Flaws said they hired 500 workers in the first quarter, the first hiring increase since the stock market bubble burst in 2000, Bloomberg reported. Shares of Mohawk(MHK) will rise as demand for ceramic tile grows, Business Week said in its Inside Wall Street column. Imation Corp.(IMN) is selling more tapes and disks used to store computer data, boosted by the popularity of downloading music from the Internet, Business Week reported.

BOTTOM LINE: The Portfolio fell slightly today as I took losses in a few shorts early in the morning. I added a few more longs in the afternoon and the Portfolio is now 125% net long. After the close, Microsoft, Broadcom, Corning, Microchip Tech, Gilead Sciences and Amazon all beat estimates handily which should provide the catalyst for another positive day tomorrow.

No comments: