It's Friday the 13th, but so far a benign mix of economic news and company reports have done little to spook the markets.
Last night brought troubling words from chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices and encouraging signs from Juniper Networks, and this morning brought upbeat news from the Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index. But none of this is having the impact of Microsoft's positive revenue surprise. Microsoft's announcement, made late Wednesday, coupled with Yahoo's view that the ad climate isn't getting any worse, drove major stock indexes to triple-digit gains Thursday.
Stocks struggled early Friday but moved well into positive territory midday, still evidently cheered by Wednesday's and Thursday's news.
At noon EDT, the Nasdaq composite added 12.77, or 0.62 percent, to 2088.51 as moderate trading had the tech-heavy index fluctuating from red to black. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 27.68, or 0.26 percent, to 10506.67. The Standard & Poor's 500 gained 4.8, or 0.4 percent, to 1212.94. The Industry Standard 100 gained 3.24, or 0.85 percent, to 383.38.
After a weak opening, the preliminary consumer sentiment number for July helped move stocks higher. The index came in at 93.7, just above June's 92.6. The move higher, which beat expectations, was fueled by continued optimism, while the present situation index dropped yet again.
It appears that job losses and a spending crunch are starting to chill consumers as well. Retail sales in June gained 0.2 percent, below expectations. And excluding autos, sales fell just slightly from May.
Luckily for consumers, Friday's core producer price index –a gauge of the prices paid for wholesale goods, excluding food and autos – came in at a 0.1 percent increase for June, indicating that inflation is still in check.
In tech news, Juniper Networks gained 77 cents, or 2.7 percent, to $29.24. The router maker, Cisco's top competitor, met lowered expectations in reporting its second-quarter numbers. Robertson Stephens upgraded Juniper's stock this morning. Cisco Systems gained 43 cents, or 2.41 percent, to $18.29.
On the other side of the coin was Advanced Micro Devices, falling $1.89, or 8.33 percent, to $20.81. The company, which competes with Intel for the PC microprocessor market, reported second-quarter numbers in line with the company's warning issued last week. The report, which highlighted continued slowing demand for AMD's flash-memory products, prompted many analysts to pull down their numbers for AMD.
Intel fell 26 cents, or 0.86 percent, to $29.84. Transmeta dipped 14 cents, or 3.5 percent, to $3.85. Motorola lost 55 cents, or 3.03 percent, to $17.60. Texas Instruments gained 26 cents, or 0.78 percent, to $33.40. Equipment maker Applied Materials dipped slightly.
Things didn't look so good for Internet security player RSA Security. The stock had lost $4.10, or 13.69 percent, to $25.85. The company just missed lowered estimates and got hit by a raft of downgrades. Competitor VeriSign fell $1.67, or 2.97 percent, to $54.63.
DRAM chipmakers Rambus and German company Infineon Technologies find themselves in the news together again, after Rambus' patent infringement suit was thrown out at the beginning of the year. Rambus' stock has gone into a tailspin, losing $1.18, or 10.85 percent, to $9.70. The company's sales and earnings fell, and the company blamed the economic slowdown and legal bills for its woes. Separately, Infineon gained 68 cents, or 3.03 percent, to $23.12 after issuing 52 million American Depositary Shares.
News that New Mexico settled with Microsoft over legal issues has done little to move the company's shares. The stock lost 6 cents, to $71.54.
Other stocks of note include Ciena, down 2.6 percent and Level 3, down 5.8 percent. Siebel Systems gained 5.2 percent, and Applied Micro Circuits gained 2 percent after naming a new COO.
On the Big Board, Lucent gained 39 cents, or 5.7 percent, to $7.25; Nokia lost 3.5 percent; EMC and AT&T Wireless gained. AT&T and Global Crossing shed about 1 percent. AOL Time Warner slipped 1.3 percent to $49.40 on rumors that the company is set to take over Great Britain's IPC Media.
