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Strategies & Market Trends : the Women of SI -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Rainy_Day_Woman who wrote (926)	3/20/2000 9:17:00 AM
From: Rainy_Day_Woman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1691

NEW YORK, March 20 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks were expected to edge slightly lower at the opening bell on Monday, but in tepid trade as Wall Street moves cautiously ahead of the Federal Reserve's policy meeting on Tuesday. Oil prices and upcoming corporate earnings announcements from some top financial names may also help to shape trading, analysts said. ``There doesn't seem to be too much this morning. We have very few economic stats coming this week,' said James Volk, co-director of institutional trading at D.A. Davidson and Co. ``Everybody is expecting the earnings numbers to be good. You've got the FOMC tomorrow and everybody's expecting a quarter-point increase. So anything that diverges from what people are expecting will cause these markets to react one way or the other,' Volk said. The Standard & Poor's 500 futures index for June floated near the breakeven point, off 0.20 of a point at 1,488, while the Nasdaq futures index for June fell 7.5 points at 4,509. The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) is expected to push interest rates up again at its policy meeting on Tuesday. Most analysts expect a 25 basis point hike, which would be the Fed's fifth interest rate boost in eight months. Otherwise, the economic docket is light this week. Data on durable goods orders for February is due on Thursday and jobless claims should be reported on Friday. Also Thursday, the Fed will release minutes from its February meeting. Markets were looking for clues from global leaders on oil output amid bearish sentiment that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries would make a decision by next week on a production increase. Crude prices retreated in Asia early Monday with the April contract down 26 cents to $30.65 per barrel. U.S. crude prices have dropped 10 percent from the nine-year peak of $34.13 hit March 7 on firm signs that producers would loosen taps soon. The dollar was holding ground against the yen Monday morning, within sight of its Asian 10-day peak, with trading muted because of a holiday in Japan and ahead of the Fed meeting. But fears that the outcome of Taiwan's elections would increase tensions between the island and China had prompted some safe haven buying of dollars last week. The dollar stood at 106.91 against the yen. On Friday, the Dow Jones industrial average (^DJI - news) ended down 35.37 points, or 0.33 percent, at 10,595.23, a day after soaring 499 points to log its biggest one-day point gain ever. The blue-chip gauge gained 6.7 percent last week, trimming its loss for the year to 7.85 percent. The Nasdaq composite index (^IXIC - news) rose 1.71 percent, or 80.74 points, to 4,798.13. Technology stocks regained their market leadership after bringing Nasdaq's recent correction to a screeching halt on Thursday. Nasdaq fell nearly 5 percent last week but is still up 17.91 percent for the year. The Standard & Poor's 500 index (^SPX - news) climbed 6.00 points on Friday, or 0.41 percent, to 1,464.47. Its gains for the week totaled 4.97 percent -- cutting its loss for 2000 to just 0.33 percent. Among stocks expected to move, data networking company 3Com Corp. (NasdaqNM:COMS - news) is due to report earnings after the market closes and discuss its business strategy. The stock gained 3-1/2 to 68 on Friday. Investment banks Lehman Bros. Holdings Inc. (NYSE:LEH - news), Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE:GS - news) and Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co. (NYSE:MWD - news) are likely to report record or near record results this week as well based on the global boom in mergers, record trading volumes on the nation's exchanges and strong investor demand for new stock offerings, analysts said.