Stocks Poised for a Higher Open Today
Thursday March 15, 8:13 am Eastern Time
By Elizabeth Lazarowitz
<<NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks are poised for a higher open on Thursday, bouncing back from a massive slide in the previous session that drove the blue-chip Dow index below the key 10,000 mark.
Investors were encouraged by the performance of Asian markets, which proved resilient to Wall Street's bloody sell-off on Wednesday, and by news from mobile phone giant Nokia Corp. (NYSE:NOK - news).
Wall Street had taken a steep tumble on Wednesday as jitters over Japan's banking sector, mixed with persistent worries about slowing U.S. economic growth and soft corporate profits, proved to be a dangerous concoction for stocks.
``We've been completely oversold, and I think the Nokia news is pretty good, so it looks like we're going to head a little higher here on the open,'' said Noah Blackstein, vice president at portfolio manager at Dynamic Power American Fund.
Nokia lowered its first-quarter sales growth forecasts, blaming a slowing U.S. economy, but maintained its earnings estimates.
With more than an hour to go before the opening bell, Standard & Poor's 500 index futures for June were up 9.20 points at 1,190.00. Nasdaq 100 index futures were up 41.50 points at 1,817.00, pointing to a gain of 2.3 percent at the open.
Japanese stocks bounded higher overnight after a major banking group there helped dispel fears over Japan's financial system by taking on steep losses to write off bad loans. The news helped soothe worries that Japan's banking woes would resonate around the globe.
The benchmark Nikkei-225 index (.N225) climbed 2.61 percent.
European shares were also higher, bolstered after earnings forecasts from global cellphone leader Nokia failed to bring any big nasty surprises.
Nokia cut its first-quarter sales forecast to about 20 percent from an earlier estimate of 25-30 percent, but kept its first quarter year-on-year earnings per share target of a flat 0.19 euros. In pre-open trading, Nokia's U.S.-traded shares firmed to $24.50 from a $21.80 closing price on Wednesday.
The pan-European FTSE Eurotop 300 index (.FTEU3) was up 0.61 percent.
On Wednesday, U.S. stocks had tumbled sharply in a frenzy of selling that left almost no sector unscathed.
``People went out and just sold everything,'' Blackstein said.
About $310 billion in investor wealth evaporated in the latest selling frenzy. That brings the total wealth destruction since the market's peaks in March 2000 to a staggering $4.9 trillion -- almost half of the value of all U.S. goods and services last year.
The tech-packed Nasdaq Composite Index (.IXIC) closed at 1,972.10, down 42.68 points or 2.12 percent. The index has plummeted 60.9 percent from its high of 5,048.62 in March a year ago.
The Dow sank 317.34 points, or 3.08 percent, to 9,973.46. It was the Dow's 10th-largest point loss ever as all of its 30 component stocks, the bluest of the blue chips and mainly Old Economy issues, finished in the red.
The broad Standard & Poor's 500 Index slumped 30.95 points, or 2.58 percent, to 1,166.71 -- still mired in bear market territory. The broad market gauge, the Wilshire 5000 index, fell to a new two-year low at 10,660.07, before recovering slightly to close at 10,744.53.
Wall Street has a slew of economic data to sort through on Thursday, including weekly jobless claims and import/export price data for February at 8:30 a.m. U.S. economists in a Reuters survey predicted jobless claims totaled 364,000 in the week ended March 10, down from 370,000 in the prior week.
At 10 a.m., the government releases current account data for the fourth quarter of 2000, and, separately, the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia issues its March index of manufacturing activity in the Mid-Atlantic region.
In other news, travel reservations giant Sabre Holdings Corp. (NYSE:TSG - news) said on Thursday it awarded computer services firm EDS Corp. (NYSE:EDS - news) a 10-year service contract valued at $2.2 billion as part of a larger deal between the two companies.>> |
