From Briefing.com: 11:48AM S&P 500 nears resistance : -- Technical -- Turnaround off support accelerated after breach of 895/897 area (see 10:11 comment) with the index nearing resistances at 910.3 (retrace) and 911.64 (recovery high). The next minor barriers, if break is seen, are at 914 and 918. Intraday support is at 903/902. Takes dip below 899/897 to hurt intraday rebound.
11:02AM Intel may reduce capex in 2003, re-evaluate manufacturing (INTC) 18.03 -0.35: Sources are telling us that Banc of America believes INTC's 2003 capex could be as low as $4.0 bln (co did not provide capex guidance for 2003 on their July 16 conference call); analyst believes reducing capex to that degree would surprise most analysts, who may be expecting flat-to-slightly up spending from 2002's $5.0-$5.3 bln. Further, firm believes that INTC is re-evaluating its manufacturing strategy and will increasingly emphasize outsourcing front-end services (ATMI and ASML may take over some lithography services), as current capex and depreciation levels are well above historical trends.
10:47AM Sector Watch: Semiconductor : Semi index (SOX at 309) is attempting to bounce off support at 307 but will need to see sustained follow through beyond the 312/313 area to improve the short term bias. Failure exposes secondary supports at 304 and 302/300. Pacing the way lower today are MU -4.8%, AMD -3.5%, TXN -3.2%, XLNX -3.9% but the losses are evenly spread across the board.
10:16AM QLGC breaks to lows of day; could see minor bounce at $34.70 support area 34.83 -4.49:
9:55AM Nasdaq Composite stabilizes : -- Technical -- Index hit in early trade but attempting to stabilize above support in the 1290/1288 area. Intraday index needs to push through the 1300/1305 area to improve tone (20 day ema at 1309). Follow through beyond secondary supports at 1283 and 1275/1270 area would inflict some damage to the recent favorable pattern.
9:42AM Sector Watch : Market opened firmly lower with storage (ELX -27.9%, QLGC -8.1%, BRCD -8.8%) pacing the way in the tech arena. Other groups on the defensive include: semi -3.2%, wireless -4.6% and software -2.2%. Outside of tech oil service is down -3.6% (Morgan Stanley downgrade), banking -1.2%, broker/dealer -1.6%. Little currently on the plus side other than gold and airline with minor interest in prescription bene mgt.
8:30AM Merix upped to Buy from Attractive at Weisel after mid-qtr update (MERX) 7.98:
8:27AM Motorola: Weisel sees SEC news pressuring stock (MOT) 11.80: -- Update -- Thomas Weisel Partners expects stock to come under pressure on news that the SEC probe of Adelphia has expanded to MOT; reserving judgement until probe is completed.
8:19AM Emulex downgraded at Goldman Sachs (ELX) 23.61: -- Update -- Goldman Sachs downgrades to MKT PERFORM from Rec List after the co lowered its rev guidance; firm says expected rev growth is disappointing, competition is heating up, and for now the mkt appears to be moving away too quickly for ELX's traditional high-end biz to keep up; cuts FY03 rev est to $313.5 mln from $350 mln.
8:15AM EMC Corp upgraded at First Albany (EMC) 7.18: First Albany upgrades to BUY from Neutral based on the co's renewed mid-range focus as well as valuation; new mid-range product initiatives should reposition the co's product sweet spot more toward scalable, less expensive storage products; AutoIS software is beginning to help gross margins, and firm expects that this margin expansion is sustainable over the longer-term; also, the co's $2 bln in cash offers a significant opportunity to pick up new technology "on the cheap." Raises 2002 est to ($0.03) from ($0.05) and 2003 to $0.21 from $0.14. Price target is $8.20.
8:09AM QLGC and BRCD off 6% in pre-market on ELX -20% warning :
finance.yahoo.com |
