Stock were mixed Thursday morning amid concerns about Qualcomm’s business outlook, strong May industrial production and hawkish comments from a voting Fed governor.
The ISDEX fell 8 to 716 and the Nasdaq declined 3 to 3794. The Dow rose 9 and the S&P 500 was unchanged. Decliners led 14 to 11 on the Big Board, where 450 million shares changed hands, and 22 to 13 on the Nasdaq, where volume was 625 million shares. Industrial production gained a strong 0.4% in May; analysts had expected a decline. Oil prices remained a concern ahead of next week’s OPEC meeting.
IDT Corp. rose 3 1/16 to 31 1/4 despite disappointing Wall Street with a 12-cent third quarter loss, 20 cents less than analysts expected. Traders focused on a $3 one-time gain from the sale of Net2Phone stock
.
Shares of Digital River fell 2 1/2 to 7 3/4 after warning that second-quarter revenues would be below estimates, but that the company expected to meet or exceed the 40-cent-per-share loss estimate. Analysts got an early indication that something was amiss at yesterday’s Bear Stearns technology conference. BroadVision
declined 3/4 to 47 11/16 after the company said it was comfortable with and could exceed estimates at the Bear Stearns conference this morning.
Shares of CDNow fell 1 1/8 to 3 5/32 after saying the firm may miss the June 30 goal it had set for finding a merger or investment partner, and that any offer may be below the current stock price.
Open Market fell 1 3/8 to 16 1/8 after several class action lawsuits were filed claiming false and misleading statements by the company.
Red Hat rose 7/16 to 22 15/16. The company is expected to report a loss of 4 cents a share after the bell on Thursday, in line with the year-ago quarter.
Priceline.com rose 1 5/8 to 44 13/16 on a Goldman Sachs upgrade.
Shares of DoubleClick , under siege lately on concerns over declining Internet advertising spending, fell 2 13/16 to 39 5/8, below support at 40. Next support is 38, but the stock’s chart pattern suggests it could eventually go to the low 30s.
Shares of yesterday’s hot IPO, Rediff.com India , soared 6 11/16 to 26.
Exodus Communications fell 5/8 to 87 3/4, after trading as high as 89 1/2. Prudential initiated coverage with a Strong Buy and a price target of $149. USinternetworking
rose 1 3/8 to 19 7/8, also on a Prudential Strong Buy and price target of $42.
E*Trade , up 1/8 to 16 3/4, and Ameritrade
, down 3/8 to 12 1/8, were mixed after CS First Boston lowered estimates due to lower trading volume, but said prices relative to accounts are at their lowest level since October 1998. Separately, E*Trade said it will acquire Versus Technologies for $174 million.
Shares of Rare Medium rose 1 5/8 to 21 1/4 on news of an alliance with Microsoft
to deliver business-to-business and business-to-consumer e-commerce solutions to clients.
Shares of eBay , up 1 5/16 to 64 1/16, and Network Appliance
, up 3 1/16 to 78 11/16, recovered a day after the two sold off on acquisition announcements.
Some technical comments on the market: This is one tough market to call. It is winding up in a pretty tight trading range; this could imply that we are getting ready for a big move. However, clues as to which direction that will be in are scarce. I’d watch the boundaries of our trading range and play the breaks; within those ranges, you’re likely to get whipsawed. That means we’re looking for a break of 3700 or 3900 on the Nasdaq
; 10,500 or 10,750 on the Dow; or a convincing move above 1480 on the S&P 500 (SPX). The good news is that we are consolidating just beneath some important levels, and could be forming bullish cup-and-handle formations on the Nasdaq and SPX. The bad news is that those same formations could also be viewed as the bulls tiring and getting ready to roll over, and we are in the process of a bearish moving average crossover on the Nasdaq. The only formations that give anything away are our bearish “diamond” formations in the weekly Dow and SPX charts, which appear rarely, and then usually only before a bear market. There’s also a bearish descending triangle developing on the Dow, with an upper boundary in the 10,750-10,800 range.
