Techs lead stocks lower

123jump.com Staff
26 Apr, 2005
New York City

IBM raised quarterly dividend by 11% to 20 cents a quarter, March new home sales jumped 10% but markets focused on earnings misses from Zoll Medical, Dupont, Mittal, Lexmark, overshadowing the good earnings from Chubb, American Express and Coach, T. Rowe Price, Wrigley and publisher Thomson.

In the end Tech stock lead the market averages lower.

Commerce Department reported March single-family new homes sales jump jumped to 1.43 million surpassing the previous high of 1.3 million in October last year. Most analysts were expecting a dip in sales figures.

Home builers continue to defy the market skepticism and investors did not waste time in bidding shares up in otherwise weak trading day.

On positive front, American Express announced 75 cents earnings for the first quarter stock trades up 30 cents, Boyd Gaming stock jumps 10% on the first quarter earnings jump of three times, Altera jumped 8% on strong first quarter earnings as company reported better than 1.0 book-to-bill ratio and upgrade to BUY from UBS and Lexmark stock trade 13% lower on earnings miss and weaker 2005 outlook.


On negative front, Silicon Labs stock down 25% as CEO of the company departs, Mittal Steel trades lower as it give weaker guidance for the next quarter, Zoll Medical cuts the 2005 earnings guidance by 70% as it misses the 1Q earnings, stock looses 7%.

Shares of Boeing ddi not react to another win of the day. Air India board has decided to place order of 50 planes worth at a list price of $5.8 billion including more than 10 Dreamliner, the latest long range plane from Boeing.

The domestic air travel market in India is growing at 20% only and recent open skies agreements between India and U.S.,U.K., and launching new flights to Singapore and Kuala Lumpur will drive need for the aircrafts. India is expected to buy additional 30 planes in the next two years.

All Three indexes closed DOWN.

S&P - 0.89%
Nasdaq - 1.20%
Dow - 0.89%


In Other News

Asian markets closed lower with Nikkei falling 0.3% .European markets end weak on uncertain economic outlook.

Air India announced plans to buy 50 planes from Boeing worth at $5.8 billion list price.
European shares end weaker on uncertain economic outlook and mixed earnings results.
Bulgaria and Romania sign accession treaty to join Eurozone bloc in 2007.
Despite weaker dollar June Gold jumped $3.20 and closed at $439 per ounce.
June Oil contracts settled lower 37 cents at $54.20 in NY.

Earnings Headlines

Several oil services companies announced better than expected 1Q earnings notably BJ Services and Schlumberger.

Higher energy and material costs are eating into some of the companies, Sara Lee, Mittal Steel, Dupont, NBTY cited lower earnings on account of these.

Lexmark, AK Steel, Puma, and Zoll Medical missed earnings by a significant margin and stocks took a beating.

Thomson, Canadian publisher reported 1Q earnings of 11cents vs. 5 cents and announced up to 15 million stock buyback.

Wrigley, Coach, 7-Eleven and T.Rowe Price announced better than expected earnings.