Market Briefing---Lane (medium)
NYSE---Deb (fast)
>>Welcome to “world financial report”. i’m lane bajardi. shares of general motors rose after the company announced plans to set $13 billion of bonds to shore up its pension fund. g.m.’s $25 billion pension deficit is the largest in the u.s. because of poor returns in the stock market. the automaker’s credit quality was cut by two credit rating companies for this reason. general motors said other borrowers are taking advantage of the lowest interest rates in four decades. prudential securities upgraded g.m. from sell to buy. analyst michael brunette says pension and eroding market share problems will beat next year. g.m. gains helped the broader markets as well. stocks rose for a ninth time in 10 weeks, this forecast from g.m., pfizer and general electric spurred optimism that economic and profit growth will accelerate. dow jones industrial average up 21 points, 9200. the s&p 500 better by a point at 995, nasdaq down four points at 1,644. big board volume 1.6 billion shares with advancers and declines just about even. nasdaq composite, nasdaq volume here 1.6 billion shares, and advancers and declines just about even as well. the wilshire 5000 barely moving on the day. the broadest measure of the market, while treasuries had their biggest weekly decline since mid march. signs of an economic recovery prompted investors to conclude the federal reserve would cut interest rates by only a quarter% pijt next week. 10-year note down nearly a quarter point. five-year note down 3/32. on the shorter end we can see the three-year note yielding 1.48%. the dollar had its biggest weekly gain versus the euro since back in july on speculation of the smaler than expected fed rate cut anticipated for next week. deb os is at the new york stock exchange with more on the day and the week that was, deb.
>> lane, as we closed out today’s session, a lot of traders really saying we still have a positive tone to this market. however, there are a lot of things coming up in the next couple of weeks as we are close to the end of june. it’s the end of the quarter and the end of the half year and the russell rebalancing. many traders have been saying how much longer will this rally last? portfolio managers are waiting to that end point. we’ll have to wait and see. a lot of things on the horizon. other traders like bob mc cuey of the griz wamd company, a lot of traders and portfolio managers placing a lot of bets on what the fed will do and what will a quarter point or a half point mean to the market. so that obviously is being looked at as well. in today’s session, obviously general electric, another big story; rising today after executives defying analysts’ predictions we heard about yesterday, and actually maintained their profit forecast for 2003, reiterating that, $1.55 to $1.70, dissipating a lot of the concerns about lower than expected may orders that might hurt earnings. telecom shares also in the spotlight. verizon is going to be selling a walkie talkie phone as early as next month. that’s according to people familiar with the matter. that’s going to be the first challenge to nextel, verizon having a pretty good lift on the day. pharmaceuticals a little bit of a mixed market here. we saw bristol-myers really coming up quite well. that is after they won f.d.a. approval for a new h.i.v. drug, and also astra zeneca actually pled guilty to criminal conspiracy and agreed to pay $355 million to settle charges it echo lewded with doctors to bill medicare and medicaid.
>> deborah kostroun at the new york stock exchange. shares of halliburton fell as much as 6% today after the company forecast profit this quarter will likely fall to two cents a share. analysts said it is expecting 25 cents from the world’s second largest oil field service provider. halliburton earned 18 cents a share a year earlier. the company cites widening losses at an oil project off brazil. halliburton was formerly run by dick chaney. crude oil rose for the first time in four sessions on reports that the organization of petroleum exporting companies are cutting back on production, gaining 36 cents to $30.82 a barrel. gold futures fell in new york as gains for the dollar against the euro made the precious metal more costly for buyers in europe. let’s go to times square where we’ll wrap up the software week.
