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CNN Live Event/Special

Dow Ends Day With Gains, Nasdaq Closes Down

Aired October 26, 2001 - 15:57   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LOU DOBBS, CNN ANCHOR: Good afternoon. I'm Lou Dobbs in New York. The closing bell is set to ring in just about two minutes, capping off what was a good week on wall street. Stocks set to finish higher, blue chips leading the way today. We'll have complete market coverage for you with the New York Stock Exchange as well as the Nasdaq marketsite. And we are going to begin with Christine Romans on the floor of the exchange with just under two minutes of trading remaining -- Christine.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Lou, it's a really nice day today. The buzz word this week is resilient. This market starts out hesitant and then starts to do better. The buyers coming in near midday and helping it to the best levels of the session.

Look at a chart of the day's action. You can see that things are pretty choppy in the early going, but the buyers really kept stepping in every time there was a little bit of a pull back. Now, we're off the best bubbles of the session, Lou. But it's holding in here, up 80 points. This is going to be a 300-point gain for the week. And there's an awful lot of negative news out there that this market has just overcome, Lou.

DOBBS: A strong performance indeed, given the environment, Christine. Thank you. We will be right back to you. Now let's go over to the Nasdaq marketsite. A choppy session for the tech issues, the index trading just below break even right now. Greg Clarkin with more for us from the Nasdaq marketsite -- Greg.

GREG CLARKIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And Lou, you know, we have the composite down about five points right now. But it was another very solid week for the Nasdaq. At these levels, we're looking at about a hundred-point gain for the week, the equivalent of roughly a six percent gain on the week.

As for today's trading, it stayed in a fairly narrow range, about a 29-point range. At one point, it was up at 1,792, coming within eight points of 1,800. That's a level it hasn't closed at since the very last day of August. So it's pulled back a little bit off that, really to nobody's surprise.

They say after the tremendous run of the last four weeks, the Nasdaq is up about 24, 25 percent in that span. They believe that there was a little pullback coming in, and actually some folks expecting a little bit of a steeper pullback. But at least every time you start to get some profit taking, another round of buying comes in. That's very encouraging. At these levels, Lou, they're basically saying this was a fairly solid week, even if closes a few points off.

DOBBS: Indeed. Greg, thanks. We will back to you as well in just a few moments. Let's go over and look for that. There's the balcony. And there is the bell. The bell wrapping up a positive day over the New York Stock Exchange, a positive week as well. Investors managing to put aside some weak corporate earnings news, poor quarterly results.

A couple of sectors leading the way at the New York Exchange today. Defense issues among the strongest today. Christine, what can you tell us about that?

ROMANS: Well, there's been a lot of speculation in these stocks all week because, as you know, after 4:30 today we're going to find out who won that huge contract for $200 billion plus to build these joint strike fighter jets. Boeing and Lockheed Martin are vying for that contract.

Both of those stocks have seen their shares gain this week quite nicely. Boeing up $1.60 here today, Lockheed Martin, $1.14. So percentage-wise, Boeing was the pick today. The other technologies up $2.50. The Pratt and Whitney unit makes the engines that will win, no matter what, analysts are saying.

And General Dynamics, not a subcontractor on this deal, but up a buck fifty anyway as the entire defense group benefiting from this mood and happiness about this money that's going to be coming into the sector because of this huge contract.

Also, oil services stocks doing very well here today. Even as oil prices were stabilizing -- I'm looking at (UNINTELLIGIBLE) crude price, just up about 2 cents here. But Baker Hughes, some of the analysts earnings easily beating the Street, up $1.50. Smith International up more that 2, as with Schlumberger. Cooper Cameron also up $1.60.

Some of the analysts are saying that third quarter earnings didn't reflect those lower oil prices, but they are thinking that maybe oil prices are going to go higher, and that's going to be better news for the bottom lines of these companies in the months and quarters ahead -- Lou.

DOBBS: Christine, thank you very much. We look forward to seeing you about 6:00 p.m. Eastern on MONEYLINE.

ROMANS: All right.

DOBBS: Greg Clarkin now with a look at the week's winning sectors on the Nasdaq -- Greg.

CLARKIN: And, Lou, I tell you, we had some nice pops in a few of these sectors and you know, it's set up as semiconductors really have to participate to have a technology rally. Well, they participated in a big way this week. Take a look at the winning sectors. We have biotechnology shares and chips, one in two, now. There were some very solid earnings reports in the biotech arena. That drove that.

Chip stocks grew. We saw a big bounce about the middle of the week and it kind of continued on through Wednesday and Thursday's trading. Networking stocks, also nice and strong.

Now, as for some of the individual big cap issues, how they performed on the week. Sun Microsystems, a 20 percent gain. You had Intel, Microsoft, Dell -- all with nice gains. About the only big cap technology share that lost on the week were shares of Oracle. They were down about 6 percent or so on the week. That, after Salomon Smith Barney downgraded the company yesterday. They lost big ground yesterday, continued to lose ground today.

Overall, Lou, we're looking at the composite at 1,768, a pretty solid week, up about 6 percent.

DOBBS: Absolutely. And Greg, of course, will also join us at 6:00 on "MONEYLINE" here on CNN.

We'll also be joined by the heads of Boeing and Lockheed Martin. Those, the two companies vying for that joint strike fighter. Edward Aldridge will be here also, the undersecretary of defense in charge of procurement. Boeing's CEO, Phil Condit, Lockheed Martin's president, Robert Stevens. All of that on "MONEYLINE," 6:00 p.m. Eastern. Please join us.

Until then, I'm Lou Dobbs in New York.

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