Market briefing---Mike(fast)
NYSE---Deb (fast)
Nasdaq---Julie (slow)
welcome from world headquarters in new york city. i’m michael mckee. for those who were buying and selling, two major story lines today. microsoft fined a record $609 million by the european union. the company is ordered to reveal windows’ data. we’ll have full coverage and reaction. a possibility of another terrorist attack also weighed on the markets . checking the bloomberg professional service, you can see what happened at seven minutes after 11:00 new york time when the first reports of an explosive device with seven detonators found a railroad linking paris to switzerland crossed the wire. no immediate connection to al qaeda. the train line remains closed. to the settling numbers as the market closes. the dow jones industrials are down about 15 points now. they were up just a few moments ago. the s&p 500 down about 2 1/2. the nasdaq which was up a little more than the others, now finishing hire by only eight points. looking at volume on the day for the new york stock exchange, a very quiet day. just 1.4 billion shares traded. that is well below average. and we’ll check with deborah kostroun at big board for a wrapup of the action there. deb, a close call on a new low for the dow. we just barely avoided that.
>> well, actually we did close out with a new low for the dow and s&p for today as we are near the closing bell. the market saw a little recovery. we dropped back down. so once again new lows for the year for the dow and s&p. however, something that traders have been talking about. we see trending lower every day this week, closing lower, lower, lower. however, it’s not done with a lot of conviction. that’s what is positive. i was talking to tim maguire of labranche specialists. he said we’re in a period of not a lot of financials. we’re waeugt on the next catalyst. we have had so many companies saying the first quarter will do a little better. we don’t have that many economic numbers today. we had the durable goods and new home sales today. this market is really kind of almost in a thinking mode. so stocks closing at the new lows for the years. financials struggled today. so did brokers and financials. they come price 20% of the s&p 500 and so when you have weakness in some of the financials, especially broker dealers, you have weakness in the market . also tech remaining fairly strong throughout the session. semikubgers doing well. b.f.c. said their first quarter will do better than expected. that stock getting a good lift up. this is the maker of lee and wrangler jeans. talking about tech stocks, microsoft closing on the higher side. hewlett-packard getting a government contract. i.b.m. the biggest gainer in the dow. all performing well. energy was the worst performer in the s&p 500 today. crude oil. we have been talking about crude oil supplies. we have been worried about them. the department of energy released their inventory report and inventories rose for a fourth week. we’re at best levels for crude oil since november. crude oil taking off on the lower side. oil services, integrated oil, natural gas all lower on the day. back to you in the studio.
>> deborah kostroun. we had much the same story on the nasdaq today. the nasdaq was up and down on the reports of terrorism and microsoft did finish a little higher but just barely, a little over seven points. volume, though, just as low as it was on the new york exchange. 1.8 billion shares traded, below average. julie hyman at nasdaq market site. she has details. julie?
>> we did have more of a gain at nasdaq. as you mentioned we have been up for most of the afternoon. had dip this is morning but then recovered. as deb said, it’s on a little less convicted than one would expect. that was evidenced by the lower than average volume that we saw on the nasdaq today. earlier today i talked to barry burman at robert baird. he says prices are more attractive. we have seen that in the technology rally we saw in today’s session. the nasdaq down 12% off the highs we saw back in january. of course, microsoft was a big story in today’s session. those shares ending the day up 1%, helping the nasdaq as a whole since it is the most heavily-weighted stock. a lot of folks talking about the fact that a lot of the news about the sanctions about microsoft were already known and were already priced into the stock. we had a note from merrill lynch reiterating their buy recommendation on the stock. they said the fines largely expected. also it is attract actively priced at this level. also we had other stocks that were related to microsoft. we had red hat, world’s biggest distributor of linux, which competes with windows, coming out with a first quarter sales and profit forecast both beating analyst estimates. much higher earlier in the day and coming back down just a bit. novell, another software maker, up 12% in today’s session. analyst upgrade at prudential. the analyst there saying that the stock has fallen again to attractive levels. also mentioning that novell has acquired two linux companies in recent months. that’s something that helped the stock as well today. also wanted to talk quickly about chip makers. gartner with a forecast for a rise of 30% in chip sales this year. that helped chip makers. intel among them, up 1.5%. mike, back to you.
>> julie hyman. round one of microsoft’s battle with the e.u. came to an end today. checking shares at the close, the stock finishing a little higher on the day. 26 cents up to $24.41. european union regulators ruled microsoft illegally used windows to restrain competition from rivals. the european competition commissioner mario monti talked with us about the competition.
>> we are not breaking new legal ground neither for europe nor indeed for the united states. we are simply ensuring that anyone who develops new software has a fair opportunity to compete in the marketplace.
>> microsoft was ordered to offer a version of windows without a music and video player. regulators are also demanding microsoft share secret programming information about windows to rivals. and the company is to pay a $609 million fine, the most ever given by the e.u. microsoft’s chief executive says that adding new features to window sincere fundamental to the way it serves customers.
>> we respect the commission’s thoert but we believe their proposed action would actually reduce consumer choice and hurt european software developers. if you compare the commission’s actions with the settlement we proposed, it’s clear our settlement would have offered far more choices and benefits to consumers.
>> ballmer says it will continue to try to address the commission’s concerns while protecting the principle of innovation. they vow to appeal. in the next half hour, we talk with a microsoft shareholder about the implications. all this will have for the company. micron technologies is a company in the spotlight at this hour as we await the after the bell earnings report. analysts said investors have raised estimates for the computer memory chip maker to reflect the recent increase in pricing. su keenan has been looking into that. she’s here with details.
>> this is an interesting report because there are a number of analysts and one of them is from schwab soundview who upgraded ratings as well as earnings estimates as memory chip price have edged higher. he also raised his stock price target to $21 from $13. that’s a 12-month target. ahead of the earnings report, micron shares rallied as much as 2.5% before returning the gains by the close. i think the stock closed down a penny. the average estimates from analyst sincere from micron technology and narrowed its second quarter loss to seven cents a share, from a loss of 83 cents a year earlier. the consensus is sales to exceed $1 billion. this doesn’t really tell the whole story because the individual earnings estimates from analysts cover a wide range from a loss of 14 cents a share to earnings of four cents a share. analysts say the recent price increases are a key reason that this quarter is so difficult to project. a one penny increase in chip pricing can mean millions of dollars in additional revenue for the chip maker. susquehanna financial will be our guest at 5:30. they have raised their earnings projections sips the start of the year. pricing could continue to increase due to a potential shortage of memory chips in the second half of the year when he expects micron to break even that. is compared to last year’s loss of 83 cents a share. first albany’s analyst expects a second quarter loss of three cents a share and earnings of $1.05 billion.
>> essentially you have a lack of supply. there’s going to be a short afpblg d-ram throughout the year. capacity is allocated to other products such as flash memory used in digital cameras and mp-3 players. there’s a shortage of people making d-ram because they have lost money for 10 years. a shortage of supply, prices come up and the company becomes more profitable.
>> strong buy on the company. shares up 90% in the past 12 months.
>> thank you very much. fears of terrorism continue to weigh on stock prices as the markets finish lower. doug sandler at wachovia securities will be here talking about the driving force of the markets .
