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Strategies & Market Trends : VOLTAIRE'S PORCH-MODERATED -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Venkie who wrote (33215)	3/13/2001 9:19:14 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 65232

Stocks Set for Firm Start Tuesday March 13, 9:13 am Eastern Time By Denise Duclaux <<NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks are expected to open higher on Tuesday as investors, betting that weak retail sales raise the odds the Federal Reserve will slash interest rates, tiptoe back into the market to pick up battered shares after a gruesome session. U.S. retail sales slumped in February for the first time since November 2000 in a sign that waning consumer confidence is putting a lid on spending, the government said before the market opened. ``It serves as confirmation that the economy is slow,'' said Tony Dwyer, chief market strategist at Kirlin Securities, adding that the numbers support expectations that the Fed will cut rates by 50 basis points at its next policy-setting meeting on March 20. ``But that's not the issue; the market is reacting to a huge decline by having an early indication higher.'' Indeed, tensions are running sky-high after the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite spiraled below the key 2,000 mark, the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrials Average notched its fifth-worst point drop ever and the broad Standard & Poor's 500 hurtled into bear territory with its sixth-largest point drop ever. With less than an hour to go before the opening bell, Nasdaq 100 premarket indicator pointed to a rise of 1.31 percent at the start. Standard & Poor's 500 index futures gained 5.80 points to 1,197.50. Dow Jones Industrial futures climbed 62 points to 10,345. Sales at U.S. retailers dropped unexpectedly by 0.2 percent to $274.49 billion after an upwardly revised 1.3 percent January rise, the Commerce Department said. The report offered a sign that shell-shocked consumers were cutting spending in the face of dropping stock markets and uncertainty about the economy's prospects. The report was sharply weaker than Wall Street economists' forecasts for a 0.4 percent increase in February retail sales. In corporate news, a large merger will grab Wall Street's attention on Tuesday. Diversified manufacturing and services company Tyco International Ltd. before the market opened said it would buy CIT Group Inc. for about $9.2 billion in stock to add a large financing component to its businesses. But the bad news keeps rolling in. Motorola Inc., the world's No. 2 mobile phone maker, said it will it will cut 7,000 positions in its wireless handset unit and post a charge against its first- and second-quarter earnings. In other company news, International Business Machines Corp. and Japan's biggest electronics maker Hitachi Ltd. said on Tuesday before the open they will cooperate in making and selling powerful business computers, semiconductors and other computer gear. Natural gas company Barrett Resources Corp. said Monday after the market closed its board would meet to consider Royal Dutch/Shell Group's $1.8 billion takeover bid, and will make a formal recommendation on the previously rejected bid within 10 business days. Newspaper publisher E.W. Scripps Co. on Monday after the close trimmed its first-quarter and full-year earnings expectations, the latest company to be hit by the softer-than-expected advertising market. Electronic component maker Molex Inc. warned on Monday after the close that it will miss fiscal third-quarter estimates because of slow orders from the personal computer, cellular phone and automotive markets. Semiconductor supply maker Cabot Microelectronics Corp. on Monday after the close warned that second-quarter revenues would decrease from the first quarter due to a slowdown in customer orders. The tech-laden Nasdaq index, which rose to a record high of 5,048.62 a year ago on March 10, fell 129.40 points, or 6.30 percent, to 1,923.39 on Monday. It was the weakest Nasdaq close since Nov. 19, 1998, when it finished at 1,919.68. The last time the Nasdaq traded under the 2000 mark was Dec. 16, 1998. The Dow plunged 436.37 points, or more than 4 percent, to 10,208.25, suffering its fifth-largest point drop ever and hitting its lowest close since late October 2000. The broader S&P fell 53.26 points, or 4.32 percent, to 1,180.16. The S&P is now in bear territory, down 22.73 percent from its closing high of 1,527.46 reached on March 24, 2000.>>