Market Briefing---Lane (medium)
NYSE---Deb (fast)
>> welcome once again to “world financial report”. i’m lane bajardi in new york. u.s. consumer prices excluding food and energy rose last months by the most since august, 2002. the core rating increased 3/10 of a percent last month, the biggest rise in a year and a half and triple the increase that was forecast by economists in the bloomberg survey. the labor department’s overall index was unchanged in may which was better than the bloomberg survey with a 10th of a point. separately u.s. production increased last month. it was the first gain in output since february, in line with the forecast with economists surveyed by bloomberg news. the factory mine capacity held state staedy. the government reports new housing construction surged 6% in may, fueled by the lowest mortgage rate on record. pfizer stock closed 4.5% higher, the biggest one-day gain since october as the company said earnings and sales estimates for next year will beat analysts’s expectations. the world’s largest drugmaker says it is benefitting from a $58 billion acquisition of pharmacia. some analysts had lowered estimates because of a delay in that purchase. pfizer executives are meeting with investors in new york city today. they said profit excluding some items would be about seven cents more than expected next year. combined sales will be $54 billion. modest gains today for the major stock market averages. we’ll run down the numbers. the dow up four points, the s&p better by one, the nasdaq up nearly two. big board volume just under 1.5 billion shares changed hands with a slight lead to the declines over advancers. nasdaq volumes just under 2 billion shares changing hands and advancers with a slight lead over declines. the wilshire 5000 showing a gain of less than 1/10 of a percent. u.s. treasuries falling in new york trading after a government report showing higher consumer prices dampen fd speculation the fed will cut interest rates by as much as a half percentage point. traders pushed treasury notes to their biggest two-day decline since mid march, saying the inflation figures say greenspan won’t settle for a quarter point cut when he and other policymakers meet next week. the dollar gained against the yen and euro for a second day in new york trading as u.s. zril production expanded. at the same time japan lowered its growth assessment saying the world’s biggest economy is showing signs of weakness. we told you about pfizer, but other drug stocks put in a good performance lifting the averages today. deborah kostroun is at the big board with more on that story, deb.
>> that’s right, lane. in fact, yesterday we were talking about the s&p pharmaceutical index performing quite well. it did once again today. it was the biggest gainer in the s&p 500. obviously pfizer a big part of that. but also merck was the second biggest gainer in the dow jones industrial average. also eli lilly getting e.u. approval for an osteoporosis treatment. looks like they’ll be releasing that in europe within the next 12 months. all the other drug stocks performing quite well in today’s session. auto makers, we were talking about merck, the second biggest gainer in the dow and general motors that led the dow jones industrial average. they said they are going to stop producing the saturn eye on small car for two extra weeks because of slower-than-expected-sales for that model. h.m.o. stocks have been in the news recently, hitting a 52-week high. we saw another 52-week high at least for wellpoint and united healthcare. also human na getting an upgrade from s&p, saying that the medicare drug benefitle likely benefit their large medicare membership. s&p saying human na likely to be one of three providers for tri care, the military’s healthcare program. peter henderson of fleet specialist says confidence still very high though we had kind of eaven market. there was recently the negative news that still continues to be ignored. he says we may continue to see this run to the end of this quarter. but he says continuing in a straight line rally. feels like the rally of 1999. he said that just cannot continue. even with today’s even market, not a whole lot of volume. we did see just about average volume. also yesterday’s huge move, he says really wasn’t made on huge volume. but he says that also gives us ideas that maybe this huge kind of rally might be running out of steam. he says momentum very strong. can’t get ip in the way of that.
>> the nasdaq is up 25% for the year, going back to the march low it is up by 31%. anthony massucci wraps up today’s market action.
