Market briefing --- Mate (slow)
Nasdaq --- Bob (fast)
Research report --- Liz (slow)
>> welcome back to “world financial report.” i’m matt nesto. let’s walk you through the day that was on wall street. the dow and the s&p both up .1%, three times as much for the nasdaq. checking on bonds today, big move for the 10-year note. in fact, its biggest one-day gain in two weeks. we’re at 4.47%. yield. and if you look at directional moves, the five-year also rising yield down and the two-year yield, you see the yields down. of course, the bond prices are going to be up. on to the dollar we go. the dollar continuing its recent gains. you see the yen actually bouncing back. today, the latest trade. but down for the month and the week. if you look at the yen―excuse me f you look at the euro, it, too, down a little bit. the pound inching higher. bob bowdon has details on today’s nasdaq trading from the market site in times square.
>> we finished the week and finished the month of july and the question is whether you your nasdaq glass is half empty or half full. for you pessimists out there you can look at the month seeing in july the nasdaq index was down 7.8%, the worst month since december of 2002. you have to go back 19 months to find a worse month than july for the nasdaq. but for you optimists out there, for the glass half full, look at the week, the nasdaq up 2% for the week, break ago four consecutive week slide on this particular week. now on the day, the nasdaq was up one third of 1% on friday’s session. although on very light volume, less than 1.5 billion shares traded. you have to go back 15 sessions to final lighter volume than you had today on the nasdaq. it is not surprising on a friday in the summertime to have light volume f. there was one overall theme, check chip equipment stocks on the day. the likes of kla-tencor up 6.2%, their fiscal fourth quarter earnings per share more than trippled and were better than expectations. this stock had been down 34% year to date before today. another example, variant semiconductor had been down 37% before today, but up almost 8% after giving a forecast that presented a mid point above analyst expectations. other chip equipment makers rallied as well, the likes of amat and cree dent systems up. from chip equipment makers to chips themselves. intersil was up 10% on the day because it released earnings and expectations, 20 cents a share and gave a forecast that met expectations, 22 cents. i had been down 33% year-to-date before today. another beaten up chip stock and by simply meeting those numbers, turned around and rallied to be the best nasdaq 100 stock. the worst, power conversion down 13%. they hit a 15-week low after reporting earnings less than expected. back to you.
>> pairs of college-bound students take note. do you want to give your student the best sho at becoming a corporate chief in where do you send him or her? if you said add ivy league school, think again. c.e.o.s are four times as more likely to have received their degree from a publicly funded university. joining us is liz whillen who has just completed the research report. the your of wisconsin known for beer, bicycles and birken stocks ties with harvard. what a great headline. elaborate, please.
>> i was a surprise to final that the university of wisconsin uzz was the number one school for a while it was the number one, but now it is tied with harvard. this is a mid western school where people are fanatic about the bucky badgers of the football team and basketball and fanatical about studying a well. it was a surprise to final that this is where most of the u.s. c.e.o.’s graduated from.
>> undergraduate, of course, right?
>> undergraduate. it is the leading undergraduate.
>> you had to go back and double check on the math when that popped up the first time. you must have been shocked. i’m sure wisconsin was pretty surprised, too.
>> actually, they weren’t. they were shocked that i was shocked. i went out and spent some time out there and they pointed out the great facilities, it is a tremendous research university. 29,000 undergraduates, a great variety, terrific engineering program. a lot of our c.e.o.s were engineering. the c.e.o. of exxon mobil was a chemical engineer. they have a terrific program for that as well.
>> it is interesting because we have been talking a lot about the price of admission to the ivy league schools, certainly no shortage of prestige there. our research pointing out that state-funned schools are pumping out more c.e.o.’s. is there a different kind of a training or candidate that comes out of the state-funded schools, if you will?
>> there are some people who believe that if you went to a state university, which can be as little as half the price of an ivy league school, you have to work so hard to make a name for yourself. you may not have the kind of connections that you’d final at an ivy league school. and there is a lot of―i interviewed the c.e.o.s with the first in their family to go to college, grew up on dairy farms in wisconsin and got to wisconsin and worked extremely hard and there’s sort of a mid western work ethic that kept popping up in minute i views.
>> i’m looking at the print out here, the m.b.a. research seems a little more predictable. harvard on top again.
>> absolutely. if you did get an m.b.a., you were likely―the largest number of m.b.a. graduates came from harvardment one of the very surprising things about our research was the large number of c.e.o.s who never finished college at all.
>> do you have a percentage or number on that?
>> we do. we had mickey aronson from carnival, charles bell, mcdonald’s, james cane from bear stearns dropped out of purdue, larry ellison of oracle, paul fireman of reebok. we had a long list. less than 5% of c.e.o.’s --
>> steve jobs was in there?
>> that’s right. less than 5% of the c.e.o.’s never finished college at all.
>> all right. i’m going to get in trouble if i don’t do this. this is the magazine that we, of course, put out here, “bloomberg markets “ magazine. sorry for the hasty little job. it is out on the newsstands now and pick up your copy and read liz’s story as well as details about the shakeup at credit suisse first boston. thanks to liz whillen for an interesting story and a glimpse inside of “bloomberg market “ magazine. coming up a preview of the trading week ahead in asia and europe. stick around for that.
