market summary Close Dow +80.96 at 10341.16, S&P +7.67 at 1121.30, Nasdaq +14.08 at 1858.56: The market had trouble holding to one true course today, but the end result was still solid gains across the averages... A decline in the price of crude oil and a number of upside earnings announcements set the stage for today's upswing, and kept stocks well bid despite a few afternoon pullbacks on the session's light volume...
Circuit City (CC 13.69 +0.05), Hovnanian Enterprises (HOV 38.48 +3.25), Seagate Technology (STX 12.30 +0.43), and Yellow Roadway (YELL 43.77 +1.38) either turned in strong earnings reports or issued better than expected guidance - the end result having a calming effect on worries about the upcoming earnings season... Trucking, storage, homebuilding, and consumer electronics emerged as some of the strongest groups, and were joined by networking, software, internet, financial (especially brokerage, consumer finance, and life insurance), airline, cyclical, and casino... The only areas, in fact, that were hit by selling were semiconductor and energy...
The latter stumbled off the 2% dip in crude oil to $43.31/bbl (OPEC's President was out earlier today saying that politics were the reason for high oil prices, not supply - which he estimates exceeds demand by 1.5 mln barrels a day), whereas the former slumped off a Lehman Brothers downgrade to Negative from Neutral... The firm said it believes that the semi downturn began in Q3 (Sept) with slow bookings in July/August, which brought to mind Intel's (INTC 19.89 -0.16) Q3 warning last Thursday...SOX -1.1, NYSE Adv/Dec 2392/931, Nasdaq Adv/Dec 1918/1185
3:25PM : Indices edge a bit higher in the afternoon's choppy trade... Although the market has come nowhere close to drifting into negative territory, the Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P 500 have vacillated in a range of 50, 13, and 6 points, respectively... Volume has simply been light for the day, and left the indices vulnerable to wide swings... Still, a positive bias has prevailed (as demonstrated by the bullish breadth figures) as buyers have been resilient in their efforts...
Crude oil that is still lower for the day, and a number of encouraging earnings pronouncements (CC, HOV, STX, and YELL), have paved the way for the up day...NYSE Adv/Dec 2257/1011, Nasdaq Adv/Dec 1757/1320
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