Big Bond Investors Are Heading For the Exits, Roiling the Market, After Years of Racking Up Profits
The carry trade. Curve flatteners. Call plays. Debt floats.
To those unfamiliar with the often-dense world of bonds, these things mean little. To players in the $22 trillion U.S. bond market they all are high-octane ways to profit from low interest rates.
In recent days, these terms all have meant the same thing: big-time losses. Falling interest rates have done more than help consumers looking for a mortgage and companies with heavy debt. They also have been a green light for large bond investors to try all kinds of complex trades to rack up profits.
For most of the past few years the trades have worked. Now that key interest rates are moving higher, as the bond market girds for the possibility of higher inflation and a possible move by the Federal Reserve to boost short-term target rates, investors are heading for the exits, roiling the bond market and weighing on stocks.
"A lot of people doing these trades are taking profits by dumping bonds," says Louis Brien, a strategist at DRW Trading, a bond-trading firm in Chicago. "It's not calamitous yet, but it can get a lot worse, if rates keep going higher and everyone heads for the doors at the same time."
The most popular of the trades has been the leveraged carry trade, a simple maneuver with a mouthful of a name. Here is how it works: Borrow money at slim short-term rates, usually close to or below Libor, the London interbank offered rate. Borrowing money for three months based on Libor is a skimpy 1.15% right now. Then just take that money and buy bonds with higher yields, such as mortgage bonds, long-term government bonds or foreign bonds.
The difference between, say, a mortgage bond with a 5% yield and the 1% or so borrowing cost can bring big profits -- especially for investors who use heavy leverage to increase the size of the positions. Some hedge funds and other traders have been using more than $25 of borrowed money for each $1 of their own to make this trade, according to traders.
Among the biggest fans of this trade in the past year or so have been banks and securities firms making bets with their own company's cash. Banks have been paying superlow rates to savers and taking that money and buying a lot of mortgage bonds. Other investors have been buying long-term bonds on the bet that the yield curve, or the plot of different bond yields, will "flatten." That just means that long-term bonds will rally, sending rates on those bonds lower in relation to rates on short-term bonds. The only downside for these wagers is if the longer-term bonds being purchased tumble in price, as they have lately. The yield on 10-year Treasury notes, which moves in the opposite direction of their price, has climbed to 4.35% from 3.7% just in the past few weeks. "If you got in the trade in the last month or two, you got burned. If you've been in the trade for a while, you've still got a positive return," says Larry Dyer, senior interest-rate strategist at Credit Suisse First Boston.
Now, some carry-trade investors are taking profits off the table from this trade and selling their holdings, causing recent problems for the bond market. But another group is digging in its heels, according to Gerald Lucas, a strategist at Bank of America, upping their bets as bond prices fall and yields go higher, making the carry trade even more tempting. Their buying has helped the bond market, which rose on Friday for the first time in 10 days.
Another hot trade has been buying callable, or redeemable, bonds with high yields. The idea here is that low rates will encourage companies that sell such bonds, such as Fannie Mae, to redeem them so they can sell even lower-rate bonds. So investors get a generous rate on what they expect to be a short-term bond. But now that rates are higher, few expect these bonds to be redeemed as quickly as they were being redeemed a few months ago. As a result, prices of these bonds are falling because investors now view them as long-term holdings with yields that look thin compared with others in the market.
Others losing are consumers and companies that took out adjustable or floating debt, which usually has a lower initial rate than fixed-rate debt. Now that rates are moving higher these investors are going to find their interest payments rise. Even gold is being jolted by moves in the bond market. When rates are low, and the value of the dollar falls, gold prices usually climb, as some investors borrow and sell dollars to buy gold. Now that borrowing rates have moved higher, these investors are dumping gold to end the trade.
Although gold usually rises on fears of inflation, gold fell $19.10, or 4.5%, to $401.60 a troy ounce in futures trading last week. "Gold investors making this trade became sellers when rates turned higher this month, which drove [gold] prices down," says George Gero, senior vice president at Legg Mason Wood Walker Inc.
For now, rates haven't climbed to troublesome levels. In fact, long-term bond yields were higher last year for a bit. If rates keep climbing, some fear there will be more losses.
One area of concern is closed-end mutual funds. During the past three years, yield-starved investors lapped up a gush of new closed-end offerings that invest in bonds or income-producing stocks to pay income to shareholders. Nearly all of the closed-end funds launched during the bear market are allowed by their prospectuses to use leverage to boost their yield. This strategy typically entails borrowing money at low short-term rates or raising cash by issuing short-term preferred fund shares, then socking that cash into higher-yielding securities such as longer-term bonds or real-estate investment trusts. As long as short-term rates don't go up, this strategy provides ample extra income to pay out to fund shareholders, making these funds attractive.
If the Fed raises rates, some of these funds will see steep losses, analysts say. "We wonder if the industry was thinking about what's coming down the road in rolling this stuff out," says Don Cassidy, a senior fund analyst at Lipper. "It's not going to be fun when rates go up."
To avoid problems of higher rates, some traders are scrambling to reconfigure their portfolios. Angelo Manioudakis, a bond manager at OppenheimerFunds, is buying mortgage bonds with coupons as high as 7%. His thinking is that if a mortgage holder hasn't refinanced a 7% mortgage yet, they probably won't if rates keep rising, reducing the chance that Mr. Manioudakis will lose a lot of money from holding the mortgage. Others who have been borrowing in the U.S. to buy higher-yielding foreign bonds are quickly closing out their trades, anticipating still higher U.S. borrowing rates and worried that foreign currencies could continue to weaken against the dollar.
As bad as things are for bonds, however, there are good reasons to expect the pain to be limited. That is because many larger investors and traders have been expecting a selloff for much of the past year. Many of these people figured the rebounding economy would push the Federal Reserve to begin increasing interest rates at some point. So when rates headed lower this year, despite the rebounding economy, many of these people took steps to protect themselves, such as buying "put" contracts, investments that gain in value when bond prices fall.
投资者撤离债市
结转交易、收益率曲线、可赎回债券、浮息债券。
对于那些不熟悉债券市场的人来说，这些名词毫无意义。而对于在22万亿美元的美国债券市场中搏取收益的投资者来说，这些名词却意味著利用低利率赚钱的有效方式。
近期以来，这些名词对他们来说却都意味著同一件事情：重大的时间损失。利率不断下降除了促使消费者申请抵押贷款，公司借入沉重债务之外，还为大型债市投资者提供了通过尝试各种各样复杂的交易方式来赚取利润的途径。
在过去几年的大部分时间里，这些交易的确给他们带来了丰厚回报。但现在，由于通货膨胀率出现上升的可能性，同时联邦储备委员会(Federal Reserve, 简称：Fed)也可能上调短期目标利率，债券市场因此而受到打击，市场中的关键利润开始上扬，投资者纷纷撤出债券市场，这导致债市大幅动荡并对股市造成压力。
芝加哥债券交易公司DRW Trading的策略师布赖恩(Louis Brien)说，许多进行上述交易的投资者开始抛售债券获利。他说，事情还没有到灾难性的地步，但如果利率不断上升，而所有的投资者同时逃离债券市场的话，情况可能糟糕得多。
最为流行的交易模式是杠杆结转交易。其实，这种交易方式相当简单，但名称听起来却有点唬人。下面就是这种交易的运作方式：以很低的短期利率（通常是接近或者低于伦敦银行同业拆息。目前3个月期伦敦银行同业拆息仅为1.15%）借入资金，然后利用借入的资金买入高收益率债券，比如抵押贷款债券、长期国债或者外币债券。
5%的抵押贷款债券收益率和大约1%的借款成本之间的差额可以带来丰厚利润，对于那些利用高杠杆率持有大量债券头寸的投资者来说尤其如此。交易员称，一些对冲基金和交易员的杠杆比率甚至达到利用1美元自有资金借入25美元资金的水平。
过去一年中，最热衷于杠杆结转交易的投资者是银行和证券公司，他们利用自有资金进行此类交易。银行向存款人支付极低的利息，然后利用这些存款买进大量抵押贷款债券。
还有一些投资者则买进长期债券，以期收益率曲线能够变得平缓，这意味著长期债券价格上升，并导致这些长期债券的收益率相对于短期债券来说有所下降。这种交易方式唯一的风险是长期债券价格出现和近期一样大幅下挫的现象。
在过去几周中，10年期美国国债收益率已经从3.7%上升至4.35%。瑞士信贷第一波士顿(Credit Suisse First Boston)资深利率策略师戴尔(Larry Dyer)说，"如果你在过去一两个月中才进入债券市场进行此类交易，那么你将受到损失，但如果已经在债市中投资了相当长时间，估计你应该还有一些获利。"
现在，一些结转交易的投资者开始获利回吐，抛售所持有的债券头寸，这导致债券市场近期剧烈动荡。但美国银行(Bank of America)策略师卢卡斯(Gerald Lucas)却表示，另一类投资者却加大了债市投资力度，因为随著债券价格下跌，收益率上升，结转交易的诱惑力变得更大。这种买盘给债券市场带来了支撑。上周五，债券市场出现10个交易日以来首次上涨。
另一个债市交易的热门方式是买进可赎回的高收益率债券。其理念在于，低利率水平将刺激联邦国民抵押贷款协会(Fannie Mae, 简称：房利美)等卖出这种高收益率可赎回债券的公司赎回债券，以发行更低利率的债券。因此投资者可以通过这种预计将短期持有的债券获得可观的回报。但现在，利率已经开始上升，没有人会预计这些债券会像几个月之前那样迅速被赎回。因此，这些债券的价格开始下跌，原因是如果作为一种长期投资持有的话，它的收益率逊色于市场内其他投资品种。
另外一些遭受损失的是交易浮息债券的投资者和企业。浮息债券的初始利率通常低于固定利率债券，但随著利率逐渐升高，投资者会发现他们需要支付的利息也逐渐增加。甚至就连金价也受到债市走势的冲击。当利率处于低位且美元汇率下跌时，一些投资者会通过借入并作空美元来买进黄金，金价因此通常会上涨。随著借贷利率上升，这些投资者就会卖出黄金，解除结转交易的头寸。
虽然对通货膨胀的担忧通常会推高金价，但上周的黄金期货走势却反其道而行之，下跌了19.10美元，至每盎司401.60美元，跌幅达4.5%。Legg Mason Wood Walker Inc.的高级副总裁乔治。盖罗(George Gero)称，由于本月利率升高，买入黄金的结转交易者纷纷卖出黄金，从而导致金价下跌。
但目前利率尚未升至令人头疼的地步。长期债券收益率去年仅上升了一点点。但一些人担心，如果利率持续攀升，他们将出现更大的亏损。
另一个令人担心的领域是封闭式共同基金。过去3年来，一系列投资于债券或有派息股票的封闭式共同基金纷纷成立，并且受到了追求高收益的投资者的踊跃追捧。根据这些基金的募集说明书，几乎所有的在熊市成立的封闭式共同基金都可使用借贷资金来提高回报率。具体做法通常是借入低利率的短期资金或者发行短期优惠基金单位，然后用募集到的资金买进长期债券或者房地产投资信托基金等高收益率证券。只要短期利率不升高，这种操作策略能给基金持有者带来额外的丰厚回报，从而使基金的吸引力大增。
分析师们称，如果Fed加息，一些基金就会出现大幅亏损。Lipper的资深基金分析师顿。卡西迪(Don Cassidy)说：如果Fed决定加息，不知道基金行业会采取什么样的对应措施。
为了避免加息带来的损失，一些交易员正在忙于调整投资组合。OppenheimerFunds的债券经理安杰洛。马尼欧达基斯(Angelo Manioudakis)正在买进票面利率高达7%的抵押贷款债券。他的想法是，如果抵押贷款持有者尚未对7%的抵押贷款进行再融资，那么当利率持续上升时，他们可能也不会去再融资，从而可以降低他因持有抵押贷款债券而出现大幅亏损的可能性。那些借入美元、买进高收益率外币债券的投资者也在抓紧结清他们的头寸，因为他们猜测美国的借贷利率会继续升高，并担心外币兑美元会持续下跌。 虽然有上述种种因素预示债市前景黯淡，但人们同样也有充分的理由相信，债市的跌幅会很有限，原因是在过去一年的多数时间里，许多大型投资者和交易员一直在预计债市将出现抛售。许多人认为，经济的反弹迟早会促使美国联邦储备委员会(Fed)调高利率。尽管今年以来利率仍处低位，这些人士仍采取了买进看跌合约等保护性措施。
(back)Stock Investors Feel the Bond Market's Pain
STOCK PRICES FOLLOW corporate earnings -- except when they run screaming the other way. The thick of earnings-reporting season arrived last week, with companies generally overachieving and investors underwhelmed.
Indifferent or even hostile responses to strong corporate profits are not unusual in periods when investors have little doubt that companies will meet expectations. But last week the barrage of March-quarter results was also upstaged by a bond-market rout, arousing latent worry among investors that interest rates and inflation are poised to surge. Strong retail sales and an unforeseen rise in consumer prices spread alarm in the bond-futures pits, which spilled over to equity desks.
The merits of those concerns are far from certain and will be determined in coming months. Yet, the hasty retreat from bonds put a dent in financial stocks, and weighed down the broad market.
Technology stocks, meanwhile, were hurt by the market's unfriendly reception to profit news from Intel, International Business Machines, Nokia and others. The Nasdaq dropped 57 points, or 2.8%, to 1995 on the week, while the Standard & Poor's 500 stock index slipped 4 to 1139.
The Dow Jones Industrials managed to click higher by 9 points on the week, to 10,451, thanks to a modest rally Friday, and the help of drug stocks. In mechanical fashion, the selling in financial and technology shares prompted buying in pharmaceutical stocks perceived as defensive. This rotation has been tried before during market dips, to mixed longer-term effect.
Citigroup and Merrill Lynch embodied the pattern that held for financials and stocks in general. Investors found no specific faults with either company's earnings, which beat forecasts. Yet their shares were trampled amid the selloff in bonds, and stocks leveraged to them.
Other companies that met or beat earnings forecasts, only to see their shares suffer, included Bank of America, Novellus Systems, Advanced Micro Devices, Texas Instruments, Siebel Systems and -- quite dramatically -- Sandisk. Companies with unambiguous disappointments, such as Nokia and Netflix, were shown even less mercy by traders.
The coming week is the busiest in terms of first-quarter earnings reports, and so will provide the keenest measure of investors' capacity for dazzlement or disappointment. If the current rate of earnings growth fails to inspire buying, expect more observers to cite the flip side of last spring's buying binge, which occurred in the face of wretched headlines.
In addition to earnings, investors now face a slate of events that could provoke anxiety and are apt to be market movers. From Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan's public testimony next week, traders' attention will hopscotch to the May 4 Fed policy meeting, the May 7 employment report and the June 30 deadline for the U.S. to turn over control of Iraq. With such a news calendar, it's a wonder the options market's best guess of future stock-market volatility, measured by the VIX index, is hovering slightly above multi-year lows.
WITH GOOD-LOOKING EARNINGS UNABLE to boost stocks on fundamental grounds, it seems the technical condition of the market won't be offering much help.
Technicians, who concentrate on stock charts and other observed market behavior, have been turning a bit more negative on the prospects for a short-term rally in the major indexes, after giving the market the benefit of the doubt for months.
Though technical analysts rarely agree in every respect when viewing the same chart, many have been raising alarms about the ability of the indexes to mount a challenge on the early-March highs. Foreboding indicators include the faltering number of new 52-week highs versus new lows, the buckling of financial stocks and the unconvincing nature of the latest low-volume rebound from the late-March lows.
John Roque at Natexis Bleichroeder points out that on Wednesday the number of new highs on the NYSE was 28, the lowest total since March 24, 2003, while new lows were 202, the most since March 12, 2003. On one level, noting the dearth of new one-year highs and the expansion in lows at the anniversary mark of a huge rally may seem like a truism. But Roque says that, no matter the reason, erosion in the high/low score means making money on the long side will be tougher.
The weakness in financials, long a prop to the broad market and more than 20% of the S&P 500, also goes on the debit side of the ledger. And faltering demand for stocks each time the market has made a move toward its highs is similarly giving technicians pause.
Though some technical types are painting mega-bear scenarios based on the recent action and the long-term charts, the predominant opinion seems to be that the S&P 500 could at least settle back toward 1085 or so. That's about 5% below the current quote, and it would mark a return to the lower bound of the tight range that's ensnared the S&P between 1080 and 1163 for the past four months.
SO MANY PROVOCATIVE QUERIES COME to mind when contemplating the phenomenon of Taser, the maker of stun guns whose stock surged 15% last week, to 114, and is up from 2 a year ago.
How did this, of all the undeserving stocks out there, become the recipient of so much attention from maniacal day traders and, in turn, from stubborn short sellers? What could possibly justify a share price of 28 times this year's sales, 16 times projected 2005 sales, 115 times 2004 forecast earnings and 72 times next year's profits?
Perhaps the most salient question: Would anyone really want to live in a country where the market for miscreant-subduing weapons could possibly grow to justify such a mountainous capitalization?
If the Taser cult were susceptible to the persuasive pull of reason, mathematics and common sense, the stock would never have approached its current three-digit status. So, reciting the mismatch of valuation and plausible business prospects now would be like reading Benjamin Graham's treatises on value to a dog.
Just take a peek at what passes for analysis on Yahoo's Taser chat room: "Do you people even understand how margin buying works? Anybody who has bought Taser on margin in the last few months has done very well for themselves. If they were poor and dumb at the time, they are rich and dumb now."
There you have it: If you want to get rich, act dumb.
Eventually, for unknowable reasons, the shares will fall earthward, short-sellers insist. And they're rooting for sooner, not later. At latest count, the shorts held about 40% of Taser's free-trading shares.
For anyone interested in the stock, even as just a spectacle, Tuesday's earnings report will be worth watching. The momentum junkies on the chat boards are insisting earnings will come in vastly higher than the 22-cent per-share estimate put forth by analysts. Oh, and Taser's announced 2-for-1 stock split will take effect late this month, which excitable traders treat as significant.
Anything less than great numbers Tuesday, and the sellers will take charge of the market for Taser, if only momentarily. But, then again, it's always hard to figure when rationality might make a cameo in farces such as this.
FOR SEVERAL MONTHS, investors driving up the value of real-estate investment trusts have been greedily chasing yield and ignoring extended share values, while telling themselves they were doing the safe and prudent thing. But the mini-crash in REIT stocks in the past few weeks has put the lie to the idea that this sector is safe at any price, proving it's possible to overdose even on the market's equivalent of antacids.
The Morgan Stanley REIT Index, known as the RMS for its ticker symbol, has tumbled more than 12% since April 1, even after bouncing slightly late last week. That means more than two years of dividend income was erased via two weeks of principal erosion.
The suddenness and violence of the move came as bond yields ticked higher, making these income vehicles less attractive. But a collapse of such magnitude was made possible only by the stretched valuations of REIT shares, reinforced by steady inflows of cash into the group.
As noted here early in the year, REITs outperformed the market over the prior four years by an unprecedented margin for such a span, raising questions about whether they could be expected to come up aces again in 2004.
The stocks in this small sector often move independently of the underlying real-estate fundamentals, based on investor demand and issuer supply. So it's worth mentioning real-estate mutual funds have bled a couple percent of their asset base through outflows in recent weeks, according to estimates by fund trackers.
This is the kind of activity that gets contrarians looking for an entry point to buy. But it might be too soon to make that sort of trading play.
Morgan Stanley analysts note that in past instances of severe REIT selloffs, the group has continued to underperform the broad market over the ensuing 10, 30 and 60 days.
Robin Carpenter of Carpenter Analytix ran some numbers that show the REIT sector to be unusually "trendy" in its behavior, meaning up or down moves tend to endure for awhile, rather than quickly reversing.
As for valuation, Morgan Stanley figures the RMS index would need to fall another 4% or so to trade at its long-term average multiple of share price to profits. Excluding the high multiples of REITs in the mid-1990s, a normal valuation would find the RMS some 13% to 14% below current levels.
Based on comparative yields, REITs look less overvalued. The current spread between REIT-dividend yields and bond yields is close to the historic norm. Of course, that's another way of saying today's bond yields are quite low by past standards, and that REITs remain vulnerable to further increases in interest rates.
Healing Drugs: Drug stocks' strength nudged the Dow to a 9-point gain on the week. Rotation into defensive names like Merck and Johnson & Johnson offset weak financials and techs.
Over long investment periods, a portfolio of high-quality REITs can be counted on to deliver current dividend income (mid-single digits today) plus some income growth. For that reason, investors unconcerned about downside risk to market value might find the potential returns acceptable today.
Morgan favors mall and industrial REITs with solid balance sheets and above-average growth prospects, such as General Growth Properties, Rouse, Regency Centers and Vornado Realty.
For those not itching to bet the REIT decline is over, a little patience could be rewarded. When REITs underperform the market, it's usually not for more than a year at a time.
From a broader perspective, there's a discomfiting aspect to the REIT carnage. The previous two times the sector had such a sudden downswing were in 1987 and 1998, not long before major breaks in the overall equity market.
A less alarmist, but still worrisome question, is whether the REITs, along with other stocks tuned to interest rates, are heralding a return to the time when stocks and bonds moved in tandem. If so, it would challenge what seems to be a cozy consensus that higher market interest rates are either a neutral or perhaps even a positive development for stocks, at least until the benchmark 10-year Treasury yield hits 5% or so.
OF ALL THE BIG-NAME companies that delivered on earnings promises only to have their stocks whacked, Intel might be the best-defended by a protective group of Wall Street analysts who follow it.
Intel stock has been a miserable performer for most of the year. It's down 22% since its 52-week closing high of 34.24 Jan. 8, underperforming the Nasdaq over that period by 16 percentage points. Intel moderated its sales outlook twice since February and has contended with concerns over notebook-computer inventories for months, even as earnings targets have generally been hit. (For more on Intel's outlook, see Plugged In.)
Yet the slide in market value has done nothing to sour the analyst community, which loved the stock at 34 and loves it just the same below 27. According to Bloomberg, 33 of the 40 analysts who follow Intel rate it a Buy, with seven Holds and no Sells.
Looking at the share-price targets quantifies their devotion. The 20 analysts with published targets see the stock getting to about 36.50, on average, up more than 35%, with a low forecast of 29 and a high of 42.
At 36.50 Intel would be valued at more than 25 times the current projection for 2005 earnings, $1.43 a share. Semiconductor analysts, incidentally, are in the habit of valuing stocks on next year's numbers, which are expected to represent the height of the chip cycle this time around.
One analyst backs up a $33 price target, some 22% above his estimate of fair value based on discounted cash-flow analysis, by noting such a premium is less extreme than those of other semi stocks. Further, at 33 Intel would reach a P/E multiple of 24 times his (below consensus) 2005 profit forecast, which he says would be a 20% discount to Intel's pre-bubble peak P/E of 30.
At least that frames the bet an investor would be making in buying Intel with expectations of the stock returning to 33 in a year. In other words, the analyst suggests Intel's valuation should get to 80% of its pre-mania high in what is supposed to be the peak year of the semiconductor cycle.
Stranger things have happened, for sure. And it's possible Wall Street sentiment toward Intel is not nearly as glowing as the sell-side consensus would suggest.
But Intel has engendered plenty of bad blood among investors. For the stock to reverse course and soar 35% probably requires at least some belated capitulation by bullish analysts, whose wishful thinking so far has been for naught.
债市下跌，殃及股市
大多数情况下，股价的表现与公司业绩密不可分。大量公司从上周开始公布收益，许多公司业绩超出预期，而投资者却无动于衷。
在投资者对公司业绩将达到预期充满信心的时候，他们对强劲公司收益的冷漠甚至敌意也不足为奇。但上周对3月份当季业绩的冷漠也受到了债市暴跌的影响，这令投资者多少有些担心利率和通货膨胀率可能将会走高。良好的零售数据加上消费者价格指数出人意料的上升给债券期货市场敲响了警钟，并进而扩散到了股票市场。
这些疑虑离变成现实还差的很远，需要在今后几个月才能得到证实。但债券市场的大幅回落打击了金融类股，并进而伤及整个股市。
与此同时，市场对英特尔(Intel)、国际商业机器公司(International Business Machines, IBM)、诺基亚(Nokia)等公司业绩的冷淡也打击了科技类股。那斯达克综合指数上周下跌57点，至1995点，跌幅2.8%；标准普尔500指数下跌4点，至1139点。
道琼斯工业股票平均价格指数上周上涨9点，收于10,451点，主要得益于上周五的反弹及医药类股的良好表现。从操作模式来看，金融及科技类股的抛盘推动了被视为抗跌类股的医药类股的买盘。这种轮动在大盘下跌时非常普遍。
花旗集团(Citigroup)和美林(Merrill Lynch)就是这种模式的牺牲品。这两家公司的收益均超出预期，投资者也难以从中发现具体的不足。但因为投资者抛售债券及涉足债券领域的公司股票，这两家公司的股票出现大幅下挫。
其他业绩达到或超过预期，而股价却出现下跌的公司包括：美国银行(Bank of America Corp., BAC)、Novellus Systems、高级微设备公司(Advanced Micro Devices Inc., AMD)、德州仪器(Texas Instruments)、Siebel Systems及Sandisk。而业绩明显令人失望的公司，如诺基亚和Netflix，则更受到交易员的无情抛售。
从公布第一财季业绩报告的公司数量而言，本周将是最为繁忙的一周，因而也会最为清晰地看出投资者对出乎意料业绩的态度。如果目前的收益增长率难以激发买盘，预计会有更多的观察家把今年的情况与去年春季的大肆买进做一番比较。 除了收益之外，投资者目前还需面对一系列可能令他们感到担忧，并影响市场走势的事件。从下周美国联邦储备委员会(Fed)主席格林斯潘(Alan Greenspan)的公开作证开始，交易员还将密切关注5月4日的Fed政策会议、5月7日的就业报告和6月30日美国向伊拉克移交权力的最后期限。在这种背景下，期权市场上判断未来股市波动性的最佳指标VIX指数仅略高于多年来的低点，这确实令人感到意外。
