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

To: Rainy_Day_Woman who wrote (981)	5/25/2000 9:21:00 AM
From: Rainy_Day_Woman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1691

NEW YORK, May 25 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks could get a lift on Thursday from the U.S. House of Representatives' vote to grant China permanent normal trade relations, but preliminary data on first-quarter Gross Domestic Product could guide trading. Analysts were expecting the market to extend the previous session's end-of-the-day rally, but said Wall Street would be listening for clues on interest rates from a speech by Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan set for this afternoon. ``We are going to get follow-through,'' said Arthur Hogan, chief market analyst at Jefferies & Co. ``Everyone wants to jump on the bandwagon. With China, there is more than a billion people we can sell things to. Unfortunately, their annual income is not very high.'' With more than an hour to go before the market opened, the Standard & Poor's 500 index futures for June rose 4.60 points to 1,406,30 while the Nasdaq 100 index futures gained 22.25 points, to 3,193.75. Wall Street well get a better read on the strength of the U.S. economy in the first quarter. At 8:30 a.m. EDT (1230 GMT) before the stock markets open, the Commerce Department is set to release preliminary Gross Domestic Product (GDP) figures. Investors have been on heightened interest rate alert since last week when the Federal Reserve took up borrowing costs by an aggressive 50 basis points and indicated still more hikes to come to slow a speeding U.S. economy. ``It looks slightly higher at the open,'' said Larry Wachtel of Prudential Securities. ``We will be looking at the GDP figures and the Greenspan speech.'' Economists surveyed by Reuters expected the data to show GDP grew by 5.2 percent, still hot, but slightly slower than the 5.4 percent in an advance report for the quarter and far less rapid than in the fourth quarter of last year. They also expected the GDP deflator, a broad measure of price pressures in the economy, to hold steady compared to the advance report that suggested a 2.7 percent rate of growth. But analysts said because the data were revisions to what the market has already seen, they were unlikely to move the market significantly. Wall Street will undoubtedly tune in to a speech by Greenspan, who talks via satellite on banking before a National Association of Urban Bankers conference in San Francisco at 3:20 p.m. EDT (1920 GMT) The China trading benefits measure must still undergo a vote by the U.S. Senate but U.S. corporations are mostly attracted to the prospect of selling more to the Chinese market of 1.3 billion people. Companies expected to to reap rewards include Asian Internet firm Chinadotcom Corp. (NasdaqNM:CHINA - news), which said on Thursday it will invest roughly $250 million in the country in the next one to two years. Telecoms company Qualcomm Inc. (NasdaqNM:QCOM - news) was another company identified as getting a boost from the China trade news. Stocks staged a late rally on Wednesday with the Dow Jones industrial average (^DJI - news) ending up 113.08 points, or 1.08 percent, at 10,535.35, thanks to strength in the tech stalwarts, airlines and consumer products shares. The Nasdaq composite (^IXIC - news) jumped 106.06 points, or 3.35 percent, to 3,270.61 -- marking its first day of gains after five sessions that stripped 553 points from the index. Broader measures of the market also climbed back. The Standard & Poor's 500 index (^SPX - news) rose 25.19 points, or 1.83 percent, to 1,399.05 while the Wilshire 5000 (^TMW - news), which tracks nearly the entire universe of U.S. equities, jumped 193.51 points, or 1.53 percent, to 12,804.19. Among stocks in the news, Gerber Childrenswear Inc. (NYSE:GCW - news), a toddler apparel company, said Wednesday it has hired First Union Securities to help explore strategic options for the company, including a possible merger or acquisition of the business. The stock closed at 4-5/16. Online medical supply company Neoforma.com Inc. (NasdaqNM:NEOF - news) on Wednesday said it was terminating its $689 million deal to acquire Eclipsys Corp. (NasdaqNM:ECLP - news) and its affiliate HEALTHvision Inc. Neoforma.com closed at 10-15/16 and Eclipsys closed at 7-9/16. Watson Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NYSE:WPI - news) said it would buy Schein Pharmaceutical Inc. (NYSE:SHP - news) in a cash tender offer of $19.50 per Schein share. Watson closed at 48-3/4 while Schein closed at 16-13/16. Bond prices sagged. The 10-year U.S. Treasury note fell 2/32, pushing the yield up to 6.49 percent from Wednesday's close of 6.47 percent. The 30-year bond was off 3/32, with the yield at 6.21 percent from Wednesday's close of 6.20 percent.