Cisco Systems led stocks higher Wednesday, but not before they got off to a wobbly start.
The indexes spend much of the morning in the red on concern about weak retail sales, a rate hike by the Bank of England, a smaller than expected gain in productivity, and nervousness ahead of Friday’s jobs report. But a late-day rally left the Nasdaq at its highest level since January 2002.
Cisco jumped 5% to a new 52-week high after beating earnings and revenue estimates, and the company said it expects 1-3% sequential revenue growth next quarter. Cisco’s guidance was more cautious than analysts had hoped for, and the company’s book-to-bill ratio slipped below 1.0, but the results were good enough to send stocks higher.
The Nasdaq rose 17 to 1976, the S&P 500 climbed 6 to 1058, and the Dow gained 36 to 9856. Volume rose to 1.42 billion shares on the NYSE, and 2.15 billion on the Nasdaq. Advancers led 18-13 on the NYSE, and 18-13 on the Nasdaq. Upside volume was 64% on the NYSE, and 69% on the Nasdaq. New highs-new lows were 353-11 on the NYSE, and 368-9 on the Nasdaq.
After the close, Cypress Semi raised guidance, NVIDIA
beat estimates, and WebMD
matched estimates.
During the day, Netopia surged 11% on its results, and Corvis
and Qualcomm
rose on their results.
Netflix plunged 13% on reports of weak sales.
Nortel rose 2% on a VOIP contract.
Oracle climbed 3% on reports of a strong quarter.
Microsoft edged higher on speculation that it could soon settle its EU antitrust dispute.
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