Market briefing --- Bob (fast)
NYSE --- Deb (fast)
Nasdaq --- Julie (slow)
welcome to “world financial report.” i’m bob bowden. let’s get to the numbers as they finish on friday afternoon. we saw green arrows for all the big major indexes. the dow jones industrial average up .3% or 29 points. the s&p 500 up four points and change or .4%. and the nasdaq composite index, the percentage gainer, up .8%. in treasuries, selling action with the 10-year and five-year notes down 14/32 and 19/32 respectively. at the shorer end --
>> closing out crude oil getting below $40 a barrel, significant given that we closed out crude oil last week at $41.63 a barrel. so we did see crude oil coming down a little bit and we also saw energy stocks lower, as well, and that was on news that saudi arabia will likely increase production and propose that opec boost quotas by two million barrels a day. that is in an informal meeting going on this weekend in amsterdam, impacting many oil stocks. as you look at the weekly winners and losers for the week, the winners in the s&p 500 for the past five days, you had real estate on that list. it was up for the week along with―you can look at the real estate stocks for the week. weekly winners and losers and real estate, it was generally, an interest-rate-sensitive area so we did see those performing well. some of the worst performers for the week in the s&p 500, you did see energy on that list, also healthcare and even some of the pharmaceuticals. in today’s session, you saw materials stocks, the best performers in the s&p 500. material stocks doing well all on this news that did you see copper futures up and they rose on concern that a copper mine in quebec is actually having% disruptions mainly due to labor issues. that’s one of the reasons we did see copper and those materials up. back to you in the studio.
>> deb, have a good weekend. thank you. the nasdaq had a three-week losing streak snapped this week as today’s rally led to a gain for the week. julie hyman has details from the nasdaq marketsite in times square.
>> the nasdaq rose about .4% this week and indeed it did end the three-week losing streak. in that losing streak, incidentally, it lost about 7%. some of the big biggest gainers on the week, phone stocks, transportation stocks, insurance and computer-relateds performing% -well. the only group declining were non-banking financial companies. today we saw a bit of a rally and that’s what snapped the losing streak and what helped the index as a whole to a gain for the week. however, on very low volume. back on tuesday we saw our lowest volume for the year and today came in and undercut that number so today, the lowest volume we’ve seen thus far this year and actually in the month of may we have not had one day that has met or beat the volume that we’ve seen for the year, the average daily volume for the year so folks not entering the market at this stage. talking about today’s market , transportation stocks led the gain as oil pulled back. airlines and trucking companies did well, so things like northwest airlines and jetblue as well as trucking companies% -j.b. hunt and c.h. robinson doing well. semiconductors performing strongly today. semiconductor equipment and materials association came out with its monthly book-to-bill ratio report saying that orders more than doubled in the month of of april. folks were encouraged by that and are buying not only semiconductor equipment names and pure semiconductor makers. really the transportation and semiconductors doing well. but really across the board we did have a nice rally in today’s session, ending the day .8% higher. back to you.
>> thank you, julie. pension fund officials met friday with executives from disney to duss discuss the company’s leadership and performance. chairman and former senator george mitchell talked about why chief executive michael eisner was not at the meeting.
>> mr. eisner is very busy, has other things to do. we have a company to run. when you have the majority of the full board and all of the independent members of the board and all of the committee chicago-area men of the board, you have a very large and effective representation.
>> is it common for the c.e.o. of a company not to attend a very important meeting.
>> it is not uncommon for a c.e.o. not to attend every meeting.
>> this is a very important one, though.
>> we have many very important meetings.
>> new york state comptroller alan hevesi says disney needs to be more transparent with executive pay.
>> we want to end the practice where compensation is negotiated with managers, the contract is signed and then everybody is told about it. we would like them to go public on their website with whatever the arrangement is before the contract is signed for 30 days and get input. input. they said they would take that under advisement.
>> mr. hevesi says disney will consider pension fund recommendations for the board. a key government witness in the trial of martha stewart and peter bacanovic has been charged with two counts of perjury.-allan dodds frank has more on that story.%
>> the head of the secret service ink laboratory has been charged with repeated lying on the witness stand in the trial of martha stewart and her co-defendant, former merrill lynch stockbroker, peter bacanovic. larry stewart, no relation to martha, who carries the title of national ink expert, testified during the trial that he participated in two examinations of ink on documents prepared by bacanovic. that document was considered central to the prosecution’s case, although bacanovic was acquitted by the jury on the specific charge relating to the document. the two-count indictment against larry stewart charges that he lied about whether he examined the documents on two occasions.% -in april and in august and in january, 2004. other examiners did the work and stewart testified accurately about their finding. the u.s. attorney in manhattan said at a press conference.
>> while our investigation has revealed that larry stewart testified falsely about the nature and extent of his participation in the examination of the disputed documents, we have uncovered nothing to raise% -questions about the accuracy or validity of the results of that examination.
>> a legal expert interviewed by bloomberg news does not believe this development will prompt judge miriam cedarbaum to order a new trial before the scheduled sentencing of martha stewart and bacanovic on june 17.
>> if judge cedarbaum rules in the government’s favor, which is probably what will occur here, this will certainly be a prominent issue in the defendant’s appeal.
>> in the statement to bloomberg news, bacanovic’s attorney said, “we believe the perjury of a key government witness undermines any integrity there was in the jury’s verdict and would require a new trial and we will pursue that.” larry stewart, who was an ink expert with the government for 22 years, faces five years in prison and a $250,000 fine on each perjury count, bob.
>> quite a story, allan. so the ink test was done but not by larry stewart?
>> that’s right. the complaint says that stewart spent five minutes on three occasions looking at the documents when in fact the tests took 20 hours to to do although the conclusions of the test were not in doubt.
>> thank you very much. shares of martha stewart living omnimedia reacted to this news, up as much as 23%. you see on the intraday chart, they fell down and finished up just 9%, but nevertheless up 9% on the day. our next guest manages $1 billion in large cap growth% -stocks. we will talk to wayne wilbanks.
