Daily Commentary from SIR Highlights the Following Stocks: Nextel Communications, Tech Data, SeaChange International, Dollar Tree Stores, Ultimate Electronics.Business Editors CINCINNATI--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 26, 2003 This daily report contains a brief commentary on the day's most notable activity and a table listing the most active calls and puts for the day. The Midday Options Update is published every day at SchaeffersResearch.com . For additional information about this report or to have it delivered to you via email everyday click on the following link: http://www.schaeffersresearch.com/addinfo . Today's Daily Commentary focuses on: Nextel Communications Nextel Communications, styled NEXTEL, (Former NASDAQ: NXTL) which is now known as the Sprint Nextel Corporation was a telecommunications firm based in the United States. Known for providing a nation-wide mobile communications system. (NASDAQ NASDAQ in full National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations U.S. market for over-the-counter securities. Established in 1971 by the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD), NASDAQ is an automated quotation system that reports on :NXTL), Tech Data (NASDAQ:TECD TECD Training Equipment Change Directive ), SeaChange International (NASDAQ:SEAC SEAC Student Environmental Action Coalition SEAC Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee SEAC Southeast Archeological Center (National Park Service) SEAC South East Asia Command (Allies WWII) ), Dollar Tree Stores (NASDAQ:DLTR DLTR Duke Law and Technology Review ), Ultimate Electronics (NASDAQ:ULTE). A second round of economic data was served up today, but it appears that investors either didn't like the main course or had anticipated a more elaborate spread as the Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P indexes were all awash in red before noon. The banquet began as the four-week average of initial jobless claims fell by 10,000 to stand at 358,750 in the week ended Nov. 22, its lowest reading since February 2001. Also on the positive side, orders for durable goods durable goods Goods, such as appliances and automobiles, that have a useful life over a number of periods. Firms that produce durable goods are often subject to wide fluctuations in sales and profits. Also called consumer durables. increased for the fifth time in the past six months, climbing to 3.3 percent in October, after being upwardly revised 2.1 percent for September. Adding a bitter flavor to today's feast, sales of new homes fell 3.5 percent during October to an adjusted annual rate of 1.105 million units. While sales came in lower than the expected 1.13 million units, readings still rank as the fifth highest on record. In positive earnings news, Tech Data (NASDAQ:TECD) rocketed more than 12 percent by midday after the provider of information technology products reported third-quarter earnings of $26.5 million, or 46 cents a share. The consensus estimate for the quarter checks in at 43 cents a share. SeaChange International (NASDAQ:SEAC) joined the positive earnings crew as it climbed almost eight percent after posting third-earnings of $1.5 million, or five cents a share. The company bested the Street estimate by a penny and topped last year's loss of two cents per share Cents per share The amount of a mutual fund's dividend or capital gains distributions that a shareholder will receive for each share owned. for same quarter. On the down side, Dollar Tree Stores (NASDAQ:DLTR) shares dropped more than eight percent before midday. The retailer announced third-quarter earnings of $36.2 million, or 31 cents per share after Tuesday's close. While the report met analyst expectations, the firm had revised its expected sales figures for the upcoming year downward to between $3.2 and $3.3 billion. Ultimate Electronics (NASDAQ:ULTE) followed suit in the loss column, seeing a more than seven-percent drop in share prices after the company reported third-quarter results that missed expectations. ULTE posted a net loss of 42 cents per share versus a three-cent gain for the same period a year ago. Analysts had expected a loss of 39 cents per share. At 1:00 p.m. eastern time, the Dow Jones Industrial Average Dow Jones Industrial Average The best known U.S. index of stocks. A price-weighted average of 30 actively traded blue-chip stocks, primarily industrials including stocks that trade on the New York Stock Exchange. (DJIA DJIA See Dow Jones Industrial Averager (DJIA). - 9749.7) is down 0.14 percent and the S&P 500 Index (SPX (Sequenced Packet EXchange) The transport layer protocol in the NetWare operating system. Similar to the TCP layer in TCP/IP, it ensures that the entire message arrives intact. SPX uses NetWare's IPX as its delivery mechanism. - 1057.82) is higher by 0.09 percent. The Nasdaq Composite (COMP - 1945.6) is up 0.13 percent. At 1:00 p.m. in the options pits, 1,296,506 calls and 826,950 puts traded for a composite put/call ratio across all five exchanges of 0.63. The CBOE CBOE See: Chicago Board Options Exchange CBOE See Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE). put/call ratio for equity options weighed in at 0.62 Nextel Communications (NASDAQ:NXTL) was the site of heavy call activity today, as 42,912 contracts crossed the tape at the security's January 25 strike on open interest of 18,755. Even with today's impressive activity, the stock's Schaeffer's put/call open interest (SOIR SOIR Schaeffer's Put/Call Open Interest Ratio SOIR Simultaneous Operations on Intersecting Runways ) still sits above 96 percent of all readings taken over the past year. What's more, the SOIR (which currently sits at 0.65) has been on the rise recently, indicating that pessimism continues to build on the options front. Additionally, this same pessimism is pervades the stock's short-interest ratio short-interest ratio A ratio that is used for market analysis and is calculated by dividing short interest by average daily volume. Technicians use the short-interest ratio as a tool to determine market direction. . With roughly 71 million shares shorted, it would take almost four days to cover current positions. Analyst have yet to fully back the security as, according to Zacks, 12 still rank the shares a "hold" while one goes as far as to recommend a "strong sell" rating. Getting technical on the telecom, NXTL's weekly relative strength against the Nasdaq has posted a strong showing for more than a year, outperforming the index since July 2002. Continued signs of strength are evident as the tandem support from the equity's 10-week and 20-week trendlines has remained consistent since April. Additionally, NXTL posted a new 52-week high of 25.24 as of 10:00 a.m. today. With pessimism still refusing to fully unwind from short interest and options players, any analyst upgrades are sure to give NXTL its walking papers for higher ground. Click the following link to see the Weekly Chart of NXTL since April 2003 with 10-Week and 20-Week Moving Averages: http://www.schaeffersresearch.com/wire?ID=8962 . |
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