Market briefing---Lane (medium)
NYSE---Deb (fast)
AOL---Su (fast)
Nasdaq---Anthony (slow)
i’m lane bajardi. qualcomm shares are active at extended hours trading right now after reporting a fiscal third quarter profit of $191.7 million. this equals net income of 23 cents a share, compared with a loss of two cents a year earlier. backing out charges, qualcomm earned 33 cents a share, three pennies ahead of analysts’ estimates. mobile phone technology maker said sales in the period climbed 20% benefitting from rising telephone demand in china and india. qualcomm shares close today regular session out higher at $36.25. this is down from a high of $200 a share in january, 2000 split adjusted. staying with cell phones now, at&t wireless posted a second straight quarterly profit on rising demand for more expensive text messages and camera phones t mobile phone company’s net income jumped more than 5% to $228 million from $34 million a year ago. sales increased to $4.16 billion. at&t wireless said revenue growth for the year will be at the high end of its earlier forecast of 5% to 7%. at&t wireless stock today fell more than 13r7b9. shares have gained 38% so far this year. aflac, the world’s biggest seller of supplemental health insurance reported a 17% rise in profit last quarter, helped by record sales in japan. but look at it in extended hours trading. we are seeing it down more than 4%. net income increased to $248 million or 48 cents a share from 40 cents a year ago. sales in benefit increased after aflac undercut rifles. shares in the regular session fell 1.3%. aflac is up 3% so far this year. deborah kostroun is at the new york stock exchange with more of the after-hours news. deb, take it away.
>> that’s right, lane. in fact, we do have many companies, as we had after the close of stock market trading yesterday, reporting their earnings, and also boosting their forecasts. in fact, take a look the some of the companies that are boosting their forecast here in the after-hours session. we do have many companies like computer associates, also columbia sportswear, symantec, sierra health, even aflac, r.h. donnelly and even brunswick many of these companies boosting their forecast here in the after-hours. computer associates, one of the companies also boosting their forecasts, but also releasing their earnings as well, and coming out and saying that their second quarter e.p.s. at 10 cents. you can see that it is up $1.76 in the after-hours session. also some of the things that computer associates saying that they have their first net profit in two years, and the company also saying that their net income was two cents a share compared with a net loss of 11 cents in the same period a year ago. also, in today’s session, some of the things that we did see, obviously drug stocks , a big, actually an increase in many of the drug stocks that we did see. they helped lead the s&p 500. glaxo smith kline saying their second quarter net income rising 13% on higher sales of advil. also schering-plough, maker of claritin allergy pills, they also had a second quarter net income, and also seeing some benefits in a new medicine that does treat―that treats fungus called knoxifil. allergan had a second quarter net loss after acquisition expenses. allergan better known for its botox anti-wrinkle treatment, they had a second quarter net loss because of expenses related to some acquisitions. also the big story on the day, obviously eastman kodak. that led the dow jones industrial average, a.o.l. time warner, that also another big story. that was the biggest drag on the s&p 500. in fact, many traders talking about today’s breaking news and how that affected trading. in fact, john wheeler, head trader at american century says the market was doing really fine until we heard about the gunshots at city hall in new york. he said buyers really kind of pulling back, and until they got a little bit more information, also buyers really kind of wanting to buy at cheaper levels. but also i should mention volume rather light. we had just about 1.25 billion shares. that a little bit lighter than what we’ve been seeing recently. it’s been a pretty lightly traded week, though earnings still certainly there. back to you, lane.
>> deborah kostroun at the new york stock exchange. shares of a.o.l. time warner fell 7% as the world’s largest media company said its online service lost almost 850,000 subscribers in the past quarter. investors are also concerned that an accounting dispute with the s.e.c. could delay the initial public offering of a.o.l.’s cable unit. meanwhile a.o.l. time warner’s second quarter net income rose almost 170% to 23 cents a share. factoring out a settlement payment for microsoft as well as gains from asset sales, the company earned 12 cents a share, two cents above the estimates of analysts surveyed by thompson financial. bloomberg’s su keenan is here with more on investor reaction to a.o.l.’s news.
>> lane, investors say the company’s second quarter gains, as you just mentioned, net income more than doubled, are overshadowed by the loss of subscribers in the online unit. a defection of 846,000 subscribers stunned peter merski who said this was triple the loss he expected. he said, “there were a fair number of warts on this earnings report.” investors say a.o.l. time warner needs to stabilize its subscriber base for the stock to move higher. shares have gained 20% year to date. munder capital’s paul cook who helps manage about $1 billion in assets, says a.o.l.’s loss of $1. --1.3 million subscribers since last year strikes at the heart of the company’s trouble. he says investors want a.o.l. to maintain its base of subscribers and turn them into broadband users. another issue concerning investors, the company’s accounting dispute with the s.e.c. a.o.l. time warner says it may have to restate $400 million in internet advertising sales. david joyce, an analyst at guzman & company, says he will raise his thing to buy on the stock when he sees two things.
>> the complete closure of the s.e.c. accounting investigation is one overhang. the other overhang is we need to see another couple quarters of good gains in the a.o.l. broaded service that they are trying to roll out.
>> a.o.l. says it added 300,000 high speed subscribers in the second quarter, bringing its total to 2.2 million. doug kass whose hedge fund sold all of its a.o.l. time warner shares six weeks ago expected the loss of advertising revenue and the loss of a.o.l. subscribers, and sees strength in the rest of the business.
>> the bright side is that the company is doing extremely good job in containing costs in the a.o.l. division, network costs are way down. as a consequences eby za margins cash flow margins are holding up relatively well considering the carnage you just described.
>> kass says he would be bullish on the stock if his outlook for the economy were stronger. lane.
>> su keenan. let’s run down the numbers on the trading day. the dow jones industrial average up by 35 points at 9,194. s&p 500 up a half point at 8988. the nasdaq up 13 at 1,719. big board volume, 1.3 billion shares. that is below average for the past six months. and at the nasdaq we see as well a below average situation, 1.8 billion shares changed hands. take a look at the wilshire 5000. it was up fractionally on the day percentage-wise. bonds, however, on the move with the 10-year note up 3/32, yielding 4.11%. similar move on the five-year and the three-year as well as the two-year. more on bonds in just a few minutes when we speak with mark lay, portfolio manager with m.d.l. capital management just ahead. sun micro system shares traded down on heavy volume today. anthony massucci has more on why sun fell from the nasdaq market site.
>> sun micro shares fell 19%, big drop today. fourth quarter profit plunged 80%. this was the most active stock in the u.s., just about 240 million shares changed hands and the stock went lower on heavy volume. competing lower cost machines are really eating away at sun’s business. i.b.m., hewlett-packard, dell are selling more servers, while sun obviously selling fewer servers here. the stock going down today, the worst drop in a year for sun stock . broadcom, this stock down 11%. the company’s second quarter loss grew from higher costs at broadcom. broadcom makes cable modem chips. with that stock down let me show a few other chip companies falling including xilinx and nvidia. shares are down for the seventh day in the past eight over at nvidia. let’s talk internet stocks . big news today coming from amazon.com. the stock has more than doubled in a year. amazon raised its forecast. actually harry potter book sales helped in the quarter. ebay and yahoo also rose. but let me show you a few other internet names on the run here. doubleclick raised its forecast. this stock rallying today in double digits. c.e.o. kevin ryan was on bloomberg television. he said the next year or two will be strong for internet advertising. now, ask jeeves, this stock is higher today, and guess what. they also raised their forecast. sales rose 66%. now, here is a stock that’s up from 98 cents a year ago.
>> anthony massucci. we’ll have more after this.
