Martha Stewart---Bob (fast)
NYSE---Deb (fast)
secured by a $2.5 million mississippi home owned by bernie ebbers.
>> what exactly is the next step in the process?
>> the next step in the process, a couple of dates were set. on may 24, there’s a date for the―an evidentiary hearing at 3:00 p.m. set for both counsels agreeing to that and a trial date set, interestingly enough, a november 9 trial at 10:00 a.m. and i want to tell you something, too, with both the martha stewart trial jury deliberations happening and the bernie ebbers arraignment, i wanted to show you the enormous army of press here with cameras and reporters and media people covering these events. it’s quite a day in downtown manhattan.
>> and no one’s done a better job than you covering it. thank you very much for your report. he’s mentioned martha stewart. of course, the deliberations in that trial underway today. the panel there asked to hear the testimony from douglas faneuil read to them. they asked to hear it again. he was the assistant to stewart’s former broker at merrill lynch and the government’s main witness. members of the jury wanted to hear faneuil’s account of the telephone calls with stewart and broker peter bacanovic. eight women and four men began considering the obstruction of justice and conspiracy charges this afternoon. we’ll go down to the courthouse for the latest on that story a little bit later in the show. as we always like to do, wrap up how things close the day on wall street. checking mixed markets with the dow and s&p inching higher, little changed, and the nasdaq down .3% today. we see weakness in the bond market. not huge declines there, but modest with the three-year and two-year notes unchanged, so to speak. not a big move in currencies, with the dollar holding gains against the yen, buying 110 there now and the euro and pound both down slightly versus the dollar. markets closed as we just said little changed today but there were many movers within the indexes. deborah kostroun is at the big board totally it all up.
>> a lot of action going on today. however, not so many catalysts going on. we’ve seen the market on monday, it was up. yesterday, it was lower. and today, we are in a tight trading range with few catalysts, only a 59-point trading range in today’s market. many traders saying they are looking towards friday’s jobs report to provide the next direction for the market because many traders saying the month of february, we really didn’t see a big trend in the market and one of the things we were waiting on, the missing link in the economy, the jobs. we’ve been hearing this week the jobs report may be very strong. also, in addition, we were talking about how the jobs yesterday, the jobs report may link up to interest rates. it could force the fed to increase interest rates and that impacts the dollar. the dollar rising once again today, reaching a three-month high against the euro. that comes into play when you are talking about the jobs report and the future of stocks . what we’re looking for in tomorrow’s session, we have quite a bit on tap. a lot of earnings. martha stewart releasing their earnings, martha stewart living omnimedia. also intel released their mid quarter update after the close of trading. many people focused on that, saying that will likely give the market direction. also february retail sales will be released. wal-mart saying that sales running at the high end of forecasts. 3% to 5%. also best buy and circuit city will be releasing february sales. what we expect on best buy, an increase of 19% in the fourth-quarter sales and circuit city only expecting a 1% increase. semiconductors, they were the biggest drag in today’s session. in the s&p 500. and that was even though we saw semiconductors getting a positive note from j.p. morgan, reiterating their positive stance but semiconductors lower and intel likely to weigh in on that tomorrow. insurance stocks , they were some of the best performers in the s&p 500. not only were insurance stocks some of the best performers today, these are the second best performers in the s&p 500 year to date. hotel, restaurant and lusher the best performers year to date. not a lot of news in insurance stocks , but we’ve been seeing strength today in the banking, financial and some of those insurance stocks . small caps, once again, really the outperformers today even though up just slightly, we did see buying in the small caps with a generally flat market. some of the small caps gaining quite well. back to you.
>> deb kostroun, thank you. with john kerry solidifying his grip on the democratic presidential nomination today, our next guest says bonds are worth a look if kerry is successful in his bid for the white house. zane brown, director of fixed income strategy at lord abbett oversees $25 billion in debt. we’ll ask him about opportunities for bond investors up next.
