Market briefing --- Matt (slow)
NYSE --- Deb (fast)
Ford --- Su (fast)
welcome back to “world financial report.” i am matt nesto. let’s bring you the closing numbers on wall street. top order of business saw the dow down just about .5% in an otherwise little-changed marketplace. 3m shares down over 5%, you could say singlehandedly practically pulling the dow down today. volume on the big board -- the dow was down today but lots% of individual stories behind that benchmark index. deb kostroun has the story.
>> yes, many individual stories. stocks down for a fourth straight day. 3m a major part of the picture, accounting for 3/4 of the loss in the dow jones industrial average and the s&p 500 below its 200-day moving average of 1104. a technical level that traders do look at. coors coming in at a 52-week high today. there is talk of a possible deal going on and here in the after-hours’ session, molsen and adolph coors saying they are in talks regarding a possibly merger subject to approval by the two boards. also, the biggest drop in two years for legg mason, also leading down the amex broker/dealer index. legg mason saying third-quarter earnings rose 48%, much less than analysts estimated. many other brokerages have have been restrained mainly by the declines in stock and bond trading revenue. lexmark, the biggest drop in the s&p 500, saying third-quarter profit as low as 90 cents a share, expected to earn 97 cents. black & decker, the biggest gainer in the s&p 500, their biggest gain ever for that stock, up almost 12%. this is the largest power tool maker saying second-quarter profit was $1.50, more than analysts estimated and helping out stanley works, that stock also higher on on the day in reaction to black & decker.
>> it wouldn’t be averages season without earnings results, starting with corning beating profit estimates on wall street. the world’s largest maker of fiber optic cable posting a second-quarter net income of seven cents a share. backing out one-time items, corning’s profit is 11 cents, two cents better than estimates. corning shares in after hours, up 6.2%. also, u.s. auto insurance giant allstate reported its results saying net income increased to just over $1 billion, or $1.47 a share, up from 84 cents a year ago, well above the estimates of $1.15. the company says profits were helped as insurance losses from natural disasters fell and the company has been using a computer system to target clients with fewer losses to buy more products. u.s. automakers report earnings this week and tomorrow we hear from ford, expected to say gains from its finance unit helped second-quarter profit almost double from a year ago. the question from investors is if ford can sustain that growth. here’s su keenan with a full report.
>> the focus on the sales themselves, matt. lehman brothers expects both ford and g.m. to post positive second-quarter earnings. its analysts look ahead to the likelihood dealers will have more cars than they can sell. automakers have said june sales fell out of concern for rising inventories and slowing growth in china. lehman has cut its ratings on the stock and bonds of both automakers to market weight from overweight. lehman’s chris grimm says while he may be making a call before earnings are out, he sees a greater possibility of production cuts and increasing incentives in the second half of the year and this. helping the bottom line. deutsche bank’s analyst rates the stock a sell.
>> their strategy is risky. they’re giving up a ton of market share but getting much better pricing. on a year-to-date basis, their retail market share is down 80 basis points and overall market share is down 120 basis points. their production clearly has to come down.
>> ford chief executive william clay ford jr. hopes to win back market share with the october launch of a redesigned mustang sports car. the new offerings include two new sedans and new sport utility vehicle. 47-year-old ford who became c.e.o. three years ago, says the mustang project was a good test for him.“if we didn’t get a sense of discipline into our product development system, we were going to die.” david breman says investors are waiting to see if the company with boost profit on more than just trucks. trucks such as the f-150 account for half of ford’s profit. last month ford changed estimates to a range of 45 to 50 cents a share. ford is expected to report second-quarter revenue at $36.5 billion xard to―compared to just over $40 billion a year ago. today ford shares rallied ahead of the report. shares have lost 6% year to date. the full earnings report is out tomorrow morning before the bell.
>> thank you, su. here’s another one worth looking at today, shares of boston scientific. they were down for a second day. in fact, they were down for the 15th day in 20. this following friday’s recall of almost 100,000 stents, the tony mesh tubes that―tiny mesh tubes that doctors implant into clogged arteries. faulty stents are linked to at least three deaths and 43 injuries and that has pulled the shares down to about their yearly low, a seven seven-month low. peaking inside the bloomberg and looking at the boston scientific story starting the the 1992 i.p.o., still up 800% and you can see the rally kicking off. this is the recent low, $6.50 a share here. the stock, over the past four years, this? in january of 2001, the past three years, excuse me. we’ll tighten it up for you and give you a better feel for this almost uninterrupted rise until this all-time high we hit come march or april, excuse me, of this year. just about as i said, $46 per share. worth taking a closer look still, zooming in, a couple of things. i’ll tighten this graph for you, but this is a three-year chart and what’s worth looking at is the relative strength at the bottom. i’ve circled it in. this is the most oversold this stock has been in at least three years and the only time really it has fully breached the oversold indicator. if we look at it, you can see the double decline here in the share price in the near term coming from that all-time high in april. a rebound back, up, and back down again, breaking us back to as i said at the open here to where we were basically when the year began. that’s boston scientific for you in a nutshell. when we return, we’ll hear from two economists on their forecasts for job growth and the economy, richard yamarone of argus research and brian wes brie of griffin cubic and stevens. stevens
