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Strategies & Market Trends : MDA - Market Direction Analysis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Les H who wrote (54812)	6/21/2000 9:24:00 AM
From: UnBelievable	Respond to of 99985

N.Y. Stocks Seen Weaker; Nasdaq Struggles At 4000 Profits, Rates, OPEC, Oh My! 06/21/2000 Dow Jones News Services (Copyright ¸ 2000 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.) By Robert O'Brien NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--Profit worries have nicked some technology bellwethers, Alan Greenspan takes his bully pulpit to Capitol Hill, and OPEC ministers may not do enough at a meeting to ease the inflationary pressures of robust energy prices. Getting a little scary on Wall Street all of a sudden, isn't it? Indications from the futures market suggest U.S. equities face some weakness from the start of Wednesday's trading, though the declines don't appear so dramatic as to suggest the fundamental backdrop has deteriorated so much so as to slip back into some kind of a debilitating fugue state. Shares of Oracle have traded weaker in premarket action, as investors react to the database software developer's quarterly profit statement, unveiled late Tuesday, which showed the company handily beat earnings projections, but owed up to less-than-stellar sales of its database software products. Seemingly compounding the worries about technology earnings, Intel late Tuesday revealed the details of the charge to second-quarter earnings it first mentioned last month. The charge came in at the low end of the range that analysts anticipated, plus the company said it expected to report a huge gain on its investments in other technology companies. Still, the stock has traded a little lower in premarket trading. The weakness in technology figures to nick the Nasdaq Composite Index for 50 points or more from the start of trading, enough to drag the index back below 4000 points, after Tuesday marking its first close above that level since April 11. Analysts have sworn as they are willing to let the Nasdaq composite circle the 4000-point mark before settling in for good, but, they also admitted, they may not have much patience regarding it. "It's okay to stall here for a few days," Bob Dickey, technical analyst at Dain Rauscher, said in a report Wednesday. "But (it is) not okay to back away from the number now as the Nasdaq has already spent the past two weeks basing just below this level. "The momentum must continue to follow through soon, or it will be broken, and the top of the trading range will have been reinforced," Dickey added. Away from technology and the Nasdaq, the broad list will be holding on to every comment from Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, who arrives at Capitol Hill at 10 a.m. ET Wednesday, to testify before a Senate panel. With the Federal Open Market Committee meeting slated to begin just a week hence on June 27, interest in what the central bank chairman has to say about the direction of monetary policy runs high. But if form holds, the ever-inscrutable Mr. Greenspan won't accommodate. OPEC ministers are huddled in Vienna where they are talking about enacting a round of production increases following the recent sharp rise in the price of oil. The organization is expected to embrace a production increase in a range of 500,000 to 1 million barrels a day; the low end of that range won't do much to dislodge recent gains in energy prices, and only a figure north of the range figures to be a bearish turn for the energy sector, analysts said. Government bonds have weakened a little in price, with the 10-year Treasury note moving 1/4 point lower, which has increased its yield to 6.04%. Global markets are going in both directions. Asian markets have risen, with the Nikkei adding 1.8% in Tokyo. European markets have weakened, though, with the FT-SE 100 falling 1.0% in London, while the DAX has declined 1.4% in Frankfurt. -Robert O'Brien; Dow Jones Newswires; 201/938-5460 (END) DOW JONES NEWS 06-21-00 09:18 AM