Last week, terrorism concerns curtailed buyers' enthusiasm for technology
stocks. The absence of corporate and economic reports earlier in the week gave
investors time to deliberate the gravity of bomb attacks in Turkey, a
purported e-mail from al Qaeda threatening assaults on Tokyo and an audiotape
allegedly from Saddam Hussein. "The attacks around the world have been
ever-present, but the market's been distracted from it because it got such
good economic news ... The market had grown accustomed to this slew of
stupendous economic news - the market has come down to reality here," said
Milton Ezrati, senior economic strategist at Lord Abbett & Co. to Reuters
News. This sentiment came into play when a surprise jump in the leading
indicators index, coupled with lower-than-expected weakly jobless claims did
little to inspire buying. Corporate margins were also on investors' agendas.
Dow member
Hewlett-Packard was bid up ahead of its quarterly release, only to quickly
give back those gains following a very strong report. Competition and
profit-margin concerns were apparently to blame. Communications-chip company
Marvel Technology Group slumped, after posting earnings for the quarter that
beat analysts' estimates by one penny, although some analysts expected better
earnings, and gross margins declined. Also, Analog Devices leapt, after it
reported its net profit doubled on strong orders worldwide, a trend it expects
to continue during the current quarter. Still, optimism manages to resonate
throughout the market. Michael Murphy, managing director of equity trading at
Wachovia Securities, commented in a Reuters News piece, "When you think about
all the negative news that's come across, if this market wasn't in good shape
then we would be down dramatically ... So there is still a lot of stock to
buy."
High-Tech Monday Update is provided courtesy of Thomson Financial. This
information is believed to be true and accurate; we take no responsibility for
inaccurate information and reserve the right to update our reports. For more
information, please visit our web site at http://www.thomson.com/financial.
SOURCE Thomson Financial
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