Market briefing --- Mike (fast)
Xerox --- June (slow)
Nasdaq --- Bob (fast)
>> welcome back to “world financial report.” i’m michael mckee. it was a down day all around with the dow jones industrials down 88 points. the s&p 500 down by about 11 and the nasdaq finishing lower, a two percentage point ton loss for the day. checking thresh rist, they close out the week on a bit of an upnote, but down for the week as a whole. the 10-year is trading at about 102.16. that is a 2/32 gain. the yield down one basis the point 4.43%. the five-year barely changed on the day, the yield 3.67%. the two-year unchanged oen the day yielding 2.65%. the dollar on the day was higher against the major trading parter? s finishing up against the euro. profits up at xerox as say that they report second quarter results and raises the forecast for the year.
>> xerox is use loger costs and sale of higher margin products to more than double second quarter profits. is and equipment sales who in the last two years has trimmed expenses, paid off debt, and cleaned up accounting practice. she has cut 17,000 jobs and hired other companies and sales of the digital products increased 4% in the quarter and now represent 3/4 of the revenue while revenue from color copiers rose 17% and represent about 1/4 of total revenue. net income of the second quarter more than doubled to $208 million or 21 cents a share. that beat the 17-cent average estimate that analysts were forecasting. revenues fell almost 2% to $3.85 billion. stanley nabi, the vice chairman of silvercrest asset management says revenue at xerox is what concerns them, though he is impressed with what the job they have done, “pulling the company away from the brink.”
>> what is of concern to me is that the revenues are not growing, or certain levels, as fast as i had hoped they would. for instance, in the service area and the finance area, earnings were down in the latest quarter. so this company needs a little bit more momentum in revenue.
>> xerox raised the forecast for the year to at least 80 cents a share, more than the 73 cents average estimate of analysts. they spend about $1 million a year on research and development. some of xerox’ new equipment have as much as 40% fewer parts. that makes manufacturering them cheaper and maintaining them easier.
>> all right. thank you. the nasdaq composite index fell for a fourth consecutive week today. bob bowdon has a wrapup of the action from the nasdaq market site.
>> the nasdaq composite index falls to the lowest close of 2004 so far. it was down 2% ton day. and now down 7.7% year to date. some of the stocks driving the nasdaq down include microsoft down 3.3%. the company issued a forecast for fiscal year 2005 of only $1.21 to $.24 a share. investorsn’t exed $1.35 3/4 as well. amazon.com shares down 13% on the day. they said their profit mixed expectation and the chief investment officer at solarises a et management says amazon is where they have high expectation and priced it for perfection and expect earnings and sales to meet street expectations if not exceed them. doubleclick down 28% ton kay da pi the company issued a forecast saying earnings would be only 13 to 17 cents a share against analyst expectation of 25 cents a share. so the range―the low end of the range there almost half of what analysts had expected for doubleclick’s full year. moving on, amgen shares down 1.3%. this outperformed the nasdaq, which i said fell 2%. amgen came out with revenues and earnings slightly above expectations and sales of the anemia drug almost doubled to $617 million. flextronics shares, though, now we have back to the stocks performing much worse than the market at large. the company said it will sell 24 million shares of new common stock in a public offering that amounts to about 5% of the existing common shares to dilute the earnings per share potential of existing flextronics shares. wanted to get to one winner ton day. yellow roadway up 4.5%. the company issued a full-year earnings forecast of the $3.70 to $3.75. analysts looking for $3.31. also t company raised the third quarter earnings forecast. that is it from the nasdaq. back to you.
>> bob bowdon. the economic expansion may not be generating inflationary pressure. that is the word from chicago federal reserve bank president michael moscow. in a speech this morning to chicago business leader, moscow said tame inflationary pressures are allowing the fed to stick to the plan to raise interest rates at a made pace. he echoed fed chairman’s alan greenspan’s promise that the central bank will “move aggressively if they see the economy begin to overheat.” the current accommodative policy is, in his words, not appropriate going forward. the fed’s next policy meeting is scheduled for august 10. the u.s. cattle herd fell to the lowest in at least 31 years. it declined for a ninth year as record calf prices and drought in the northern plains encouraged ranchers to sell animals rather than keep them for breeding. the cattle herd, which is the broadest measure of u.s. beef dropped to 104 million head as of july 1. the herd at mid year was the lowest level since the usda started tracking the figure in 1973. when we come back, we will preview next week’s action in europe and shea with our own bloomberg market specialist. stay with us.
