Tuesday, May 18, 2004

Tuesday Close

S&P 500 1,091.53 +.69%
NASDAQ 1,897.82 +1.13%


Leading Sectors
Iron/Steel +6.15%
Airlines +3.66%
Gaming +2.45%

Lagging Sectors
Tobacco +.06%
Energy -1.49%
Oil Service -1.71%

Other
Crude Oil 40.43 -.27%
Natural Gas 6.17 +.23%
Gold 376.50 +.16%
Base Metals 100.69 +.77%
U.S. Dollar 91.19 +.21%
10-Yr. T-note Yield 4.73% +.93%
VIX 19.33 -3.16%
Put/Call .93 -23.77%
NYSE Arms .81 -69.66%

After-hours Movers
KROL +29.89% after announcing that MMC would acquire it for $1.9B in cash.
HPQ +4.64% after beating 2Q revenue estimates and boosting 2nd half revenue by $1B.
ADSK -4.87% after beating 1Q estimates and lowering 2Q forecast.
NTAP -5.80% after beating 4Q revenue estimates and lowering 05 forecast.

Recommendations
UN raised to Overweight at Prudential, target $74. Goldman Sachs reiterated Outperform on GDT, KO, PG, TIF, HD and SPLS. Jim Cramer, of TheStreet.com, wrote a positive column on KMRT.

After-hours News
U.S. stocks finished higher Tuesday on a drop in energy prices and optimism that Asian growth is still in tact after a stellar Japanese economic report. After the close, Jim Lennon of Macquarie Bank said that China's iron-ore imports and steel consumption will slow down sharply for the rest of the year, Reuters reported. Applied Materials, the world's largest maker of semi-equipment, said second quarter sales rose 82% to $2.02 billion, its biggest gain since the tech sector collapsed in 2000, Bloomberg reported. Hewlett-Packard said second-quarter sales rose 12% to $20.1 billion, above analysts' estimates, Bloomberg said.

BOTTOM LINE: The Portfolio had a good day today as a few of my biotech and Chinese ADR longs rose substantially. I added a few new longs in the base metal and tech sectors in the afternoon, bringing the Portfolio's market exposure to 125% net long. Volume was not very good today, but the tone of the market was much improved from recent action.

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