Market briefing---Matt (slow)
Nasdaq---Julie (slow)
Tyco---Bob (fast)
>> welcome back to “world financial report.” i’m matt nesto. i shall have at pleasure of walking you through the day and week that was. the dow, s&p and nasdaq all finishing the day and the week lower, down 1%. 1.1% for the nasdaq. we can also take a look at treasuries today. they were weaker. the 10 and five-year note both on a slide. the yield rising on the 10-year, up above 3.75%. and look at shorter end, a mixed unchanged market to report there.currency trading, mixed. dollar buying a little less yen right now. euro and pound both down. well, airbus gains additional ground on rival boeing. the european aircraft maker won an agreement from spirit airlines, the u.s. discount carrier, planing to order 35 planes, a deal that could be worth $2 billion. it may sign on for 60 more planes, bringing that total order to $5 billion. spirit says it chose airbus because of wider seats, better fuel economy and helping in its getting financing. airbus topped boeing by increasing sales to discount airlines such as spirit going onto snatch the title as the world’s biggest commercial aircraft maker, first time ever that they did that against boeing. the nasdaq ended the day and week lower on lower than average volume. julie hyman has the wrap from the nasdaq market site in times square.
>> volume for the day was 1.6 billion shares. now that compares with a six- month daily average of 1.8 billion shares. certainly behind that it was off the lowest volume of the week. this is not necessarily what one would expect on a day with witching, expiration of futures and options contracts. but that is the case that we saw today. we also saw volume accelerate at the end of the day. we finished out week 2.2% lower. that’s the eighth week in nine that the nasdaq has fallen. as for some of the groups that we saw falling the most this week, transportation down the most, more than 5%. computers also down almost 3%. also semiconducters down 4.5% on the week. so those are some of the worst performers. within the transportation index, the biggest stock that pulled down, swift transportation. it fell 25% this week. this is a trucking company that came out earlier in this week to say first quarter profit would be significantly lower than what analysts had forecast. yesterday it was more specific. said profit would be three to eight cents a share. analysts cut their forecast to 14 cents a share. still behind that. seven analysts today actually downgrading the stock. not good news for swift this week or today. adobe systems today, however, a different story, up almost 10%. that is almost its biggest gain in a year and a half. the company came out beating analyst estimates for both the first quarter profit which it reported as well as the forecast for the second quarter and fiscal year, targeting more corporate clients. apparently that strategy has been successful. 3com shares fell 5% today after the third quarter net loss widened. sales for a 20th straight quarter. this time they were down 21%. that caused shares to fall as well. back over to you.
>> in other news today, jurors in new york have completed a second day of deliberations in the fraud an theft trial of former tyco c.e.o., dennis kozlowski, and former chief financial officer, mark swartz. today the prosecution and defense tried to read the jurors’ minds by analyzing the requests they made so far. bob bowdon has been covering the deliberations and is here with a wrap of the day’s events. interesting.
>> it was. matt nesto, a lot of waiting in the jury deliberations today where you wait to hear back of notes from the jury to the judge and interpret what they might mean. that was a lot of what today had to do with. let’s get to some of the news and what is seen as damaging to the prosecution. there was a ruling from the judge telling the jurors they must acquit dennis kozlowski on the larceny charge if they think he “believed he was authorized to taeubgt money.” it has to do with intend. the judge was responding to a note from the jury on the meaning of criminal intent. he said jurors must find kozlowski and swartz acted with hrars tphous intent when they took $170 million in bonuses and company loans to convict them of the charges. prosecutors had argued, on the other hand, that swartz and kozlowski’s states of mind should not be given special impetus. kozlowski’s lawyer says the issue goes to the heart of the case. the defense argued that tyco’s board had authorized or knew of everything kozlowski and swartz did. without the jury present, this was interesting. the judge contradicted an assertion by the prosecution that the defendants’ intent was not important. he told prosecutors this. this was with the jury not there. “that is the law and i know you’re not crazy about the law but we just work here.” he delivered that in a dead pan tone. so really a couple of other things that the jury asked for. ao calculator, things like a board to draw numbers on as they went through the calculations to come up with the bonus figures. also annual reports for 1977 -- 1997 through 2002 as well as earnings reports, press releases those kinds of things. they’re going through the numbers. they’re doing a lot of calculations.
>> what is that telling people? is that good for the prosecution bad for the defense or the other way around?
>> both sets of attorneys come to the media and spin after each one of the jury questions come and explaining why it is ok for their side that whatever happened happened. there’s certainly opinions on both sides.
>> of course, only one jury note ultimately matters and that’s the last one of all.
>> i aoeupb deed.
>> microsoft and sony are scheduled to make a presentation at the game developers conference next week. we’ll get a preview of that technology conference from analyst p.j. mcneely of american technology research and find out what the latest blows are in the video game wars. that’s up next.
