Market briefing---Mike (fast)
NYSE---Deb (fast)
>> welcome back to “world financial report.” i’m michael mckee reporting tonight from washington. recapping the day on wall street, all the major indexes finishing higher, the dow jones by 140 points on the day, the s&p 500 finishing higher by almost 16 points, and the nasdaq with about a 2.5% gain on the day, up by 49 points. most actives on the new york stock exchange, lucent, bank of america, and fleetboston still trading off of yesterday’s merger anonymity. merger announcement. today’s consumer confidence came in better than expected and that helped stocks today. deborah kostroun has more at the new york stock exchange.
>> obviously, semiconductors at the top of the s&p 500, they performed well and the best performers but right below that we did see retail performing well and with consumer confidence rising with the little bit stable labor market, at least that’s what the consumer confidence report told us, retail performing quite well because that’s obviously been one of the drivers here, but also, in addition, what really kind of led the retail in addition to the consumer confidence report, we also had goldman sachs kind of talking about lows at home depot saying that yesterday’s strong home sales combined with vendor reports and channel checks also suggests that home depot, and lowe’s, are really kind of tracking ahead of forecasts, so we actually did see home depot and lowe’s hitting 52-week highs in today’s session. also goldman sachs raising their estimates for home depot and lowe’s. also for dick’s sporting goods and c.s.k. auto as well, a couple other names. but some of the retail performing well in today’s session. technology getting a little bit of a lift, a little bit of a spillover from microsoft settling those fixed class-action lawsuits, we did see i.b.m. performing well on the heels of that. in addition, tobacco―we saw r.j.r., that was the biggest performer in the―the best performer in the s&p 500. of course, news came after the close of trading yesterday that r.j. reynolds is going to be combining their cigarette business with british american tobacco, and obviously the thought there is they will be -- they will be better able to compete with philip morris. that’s something many of the tobacco companies have been struggling with. they have been struggling with so much competition coming in from cheaper brands, discounted brands and this is something they have really been working on for the past year. talking about the merger between r.j.r. and british american tobacco, we are really seeing -- yesterday was the busiest day in four years for mergers and acquisition activity. for the month of october we’re already seeing a 66% rise in september, also the most this month since july 2001, so quite some time, and also, really quickly, bank of america lost 10% yesterday but losing only 1.1% in today’s session. back to you.
>> deborah kostroun. we have some breaking earnings news now from barnes & noble.com―from barnesandnoble.com, reporting a loss of eight cents a share in their third quarter. the company saying it says sales for the year between $415 million and $435 million and a loss on the year of 28 cents to 32 cents. that bookends the thomson financial estimate of a 30-cent loss for barnes barnes & noble.com. you can see trading in the stock today it lost a penny. medical news now, ivaks shares soared after the company said the food & drug administration approved its generic version of bristol-myers squibb’s diabetes drug. the bristol-myers drug glucophage x.r. a key drug approval for genentech and its partner zoma, they have won food & drug administration approval of their raptiva drug for serious cases of psoriasis which causes the skin to itch, crack and bleed. the f.d.a. clearance allows raptiva to compete. analysts say xoma may eventually generate sales of $500 million a year. about five million people in the u.s. have psoriasis according to the national institute of health. shares of genentech today up on the day 1.98, xoma down 15 cents. biogen shares gained today after the biotechnology company said third quarter profit rose 31% as more doctors prescribed its avonex multiple sclerosis drug. shares rose even after the introduction of a competing drug in the u.s.
>> we’re continuing to try to grow that franchise, the multiple sclerosis market overall has slowed down. growth is about 8.5% this year, year to date in the u.s., stronger than that, mid teens in the european markets―we would like to continue to grow with the market, a very competitive marketplace, our performance in general has been stronger than most people believed we could do with the avonex business.
>> the income climbed to 36 cents a share. excluding certain items biogen earned 51 cents, topping wall street estimates. sales climbed 19% to $342 million. biogen’s newest product, psoriasis drug amovibe has had a slow start. problems with insurance reimbursement are holding back usage. shares of king pharmaceuticals dropped after it cut its full-year profit and sales forecasts. the drug maker’s stock had its biggest decline in seven months. king says sales of its heart pills are dropping because of competition in the market to prevent heart conditions. revenue may only rise to $1.5 3 billion. king also forecasts the profit will drop to as little as $1.40 a share from as much as $1.60. it did not give a net income forecast. president bush is urging the congress to spend his spend -- to pass his spending bill.
