S&P 500 1,104.96 +.80%
NASDAQ 1,860.72 +1.30%
Leading Sectors
Networking +2.52%
Internet +2.06%
I-Banks +2.04%
Lagging Sectors
Papers -.15%
Fashion -.30%
Homebuilders -.93%
Other
Crude Oil 43.63 +.37%
Natural Gas 5.31 +.32
Gold 409.20 -.20%
Base Metals 107.90 -1.18%
U.S. Dollar 89.42 -.03%
10-Yr. T-note Yield 4.26% -.14%
VIX 14.98 -2.28%
Put/Call .78 -1.27%
NYSE Arms .79 -35.77%
After-hours Movers
CECO -9.71% after saying Robert McNamara Jr., former general counsel to the CIA, will be the company's first senior v.p. of compliance.
CWTR +10.01% after beating 2Q estimates.
SBUX -4.11% after saying August same-store-sales rose 8%, less than the 11% average gain in the first 11 months of its fiscal year.
CYBX -4.48% after raising 2Q profit forecast and lowering 2Q sales guidance.
ZIGO +17.62% after reporting strong 4Q and saying it had entered into an agreement to sell its vacant Westborough, Mass., facility.
Recommendations
Goldman Sachs reiterated Outperform on TU and UNH. Goldman reiterated Underperform on BA.
After-hours News
U.S. stocks finished higher today as the Dow hit a six-week high on optimism over falling oil prices. After the close, Microsoft was fined by Brazil's antitrust regulator the equivalent of 10% of its 1998 sales to the federal government for illegal practices, Bloomberg reported. Iraqi police rounded up dozens of journalists in a Najaf hotel today and took them to the station. "You are brought here because I want to tell you that you never publish the truth," Najaf police Chief Ghaleb al-Jezari told the reporters, Agence France-Presse reported. Crude oil futures plunged 3.9% to $43.47/bbl., the biggest decline in almost three months, after a government reported showed that U.S. gasoline supplies were higher-than-expected. Former Enron director of investor relations, Mark Koenig, pleaded guilty in federal court in Houston to aiding and abetting securities fraud and has agreed to cooperate with prosecutors, Bloomberg reported. Militiamen loyal to Moqtada al-Sadr will suspend fighting in Iraq to market the return of the nation's leading Shiite Muslim cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Bloomberg reported.
BOTTOM LINE: The Portfolio finished slightly higher today as my falling steel shorts and rising alternative energy longs more than offset my declining homebuilding longs. I added a few new technology and restaurant longs in the afternoon, leaving the Portfolio 100% net long. One of my new longs is OSTK and I am using a $30.75 stop-loss on the position. The action in the unleaded gasoline and oil futures is very encouraging and will provide further stimuli to economic demand in the fourth quarter. Many large investors are vacationing this week and many more are planning on leaving NYC during the Republican Convention next week. This leads me to conclude this rally has further to go, barring an act of terror at the convention. The market is also anticipating pro-business political rhetoric and a bounce in the polls for President Bush, which the majority of investors view favorably.
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