Schaeffer's Today's Market Features: IBM, AutoZone, Kroger, and Toll Brothers.CINCINNATI -- Among the stocks featured in the December 5 edition of Schaeffer's Today's Market are IBM (International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY, www.ibm.com) The world's largest computer company. IBM's product lines include the S/390 mainframes (zSeries), AS/400 midrange business systems (iSeries), RS/6000 workstations and servers (pSeries), Intel-based servers (xSeries) (NYSE NYSE See: New York Stock Exchange :IBM), AutoZone (NYSE:AZO), Kroger (NYSE:KR), and Toll Brothers (NYSE:TOL). Schaeffer's Today's Market is just one of the many free market commentaries written every day at www.SchaeffersResearch.com - the home of Bernie Schaeffer and Schaeffer's Investment Research. Today's Market is written throughout every trading day In Business, the trading day is the time span that a particular stock exchange is open. For example, the New York Stock Exchange is, as of 2006, open from 09:30AM to 4:00PM. Trading days never take place on weekends. by Schaeffer's financial analysts and traders. The entries are quick updates on the day's most notable market activity and news. To have our weekly column Monday Morning Outlook delivered to you free via email, click on the following link and you'll also get an opportunity to win an iPod Nano A flash-based digital music player from Apple, introduced in 2005. Like larger iPod models, the nano has a color screen. Although the nano name suggests ultra-small "nanotechnology," the iPod shuffle is actually smaller. See iPod. . http://www.schaeffersresearch.com/redirect.aspx?CODE=PRMS A full featured ERP system for the AS/400 from SSA Global Technologies, Inc., Chicago IL (www.ssaglobal.com). PRMS dates back to 1980 when the PCR company released its Resource Management System (RMS) software. In 1987, Pansophic Systems acquired PCR and added the "P" to the "RMS. 13M&PAGE=1. Don't forget that many of our observations are available as audio presentations that you can hear on your computer or download from Apple's iTunes Music Store to play on a portable device such as an iPod. To see the full menu of podcasts, please visit http://www.schaeffersresearch.com/commentary/podcasts/. 8:24 AM Weekly Chain Store Sales Jump Futures are mixed this morning ahead of a fresh wave of economic data. To start the morning off, a survey by the International Council of Shopping Centers The International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) is an international trade association of the shopping center industry. The organization, founded in 1957, has 65,000 members worldwide, which include shopping center owners, developers and managers, as well as other individuals, , Inc. (ICSC ICSC International Council of Shopping Centers ICSC International Chemical Safety Cards ICSC International Civil Service Commission ICSC International Council of Shopping Centres ICSC International Catholic Stewardship Council ) and UBS UBS Union Bank of Switzerland UBS United Bible Societies UBS United Blood Services UBS United Buying Service UBS Used Bookstore UBS University Business Services UBS Universal Building Society (UK) UBS Ulaanbaatar Broadcasting System Securities said that chain store sales for the week ended December 2 rose 3.1 percent from the year-ago period. On a week-over-week basis, sales slipped 2.6 percent. For December, ICSC expects sales to grow by 2.5 percent to 3.0 percent. Elsewhere, IBM (NYSE:IBM) announced that it has agreed to acquire Consul Risk Management Inc., a privately held provider of compliance and security audit software. Financial terms of the deal weren't disclosed. IBM expects the transaction to close in the first quarter of the 2007 calendar year. In earnings news, AutoZone (NYSE:AZO) announced first-quarter earnings of $123.9 million, or $1.73 per share, as sales rose 4.1 percent to $1.39 billion. Same-store sales Same-store sales is a business term which refers to the revenue generated by one of a retail chain's specific outlets during a certain period of time (often a fiscal quarter or a particular shopping season), compared to an identical period in the past, usually in the previous year. edged 0.3 percent higher in the quarter. Analysts had predicted a profit of $1.68 per share in the November period. Toll Brothers (NYSE:TOL) warned that next year's fiscal-year profit may fall 62 percent but also said it may be seeing a floor in some markets where deposits and traffic, although erratic from week to week, seem to be dancing on the bottom or slightly above. Earnings for the fourth quarter came in at $174 million, or $1.07 per share, with revenue falling to $1.81 billion from $2.02 billion. Excluding items, earnings would have come in at $1.49 per share. Analysts had expected earnings of $1.06 per share. 10:37 AM A Productive Day for the Market The floodgates have opened this morning and economic data has begun to pour out. First things first; unit labor costs were revised notably lower for the third quarter to a 2.3-percent annual pace. The originally reported figure showed an increase of 3.8 percent on a year-over-year basis. Unit labor costs were also revised lower for the second quarter, to a 2.4-percent decrease from the initially reported 5.4-percent advance. Non-farm productivity was revised to show a 0.2-percent increase in the third quarter, below expectations for a 0.5-percent rise. Next across the newswires was factory-orders datum The singular form of data; for example, one datum. It is rarely used, and data, its plural form, is commonly used for both singular and plural. for October. The number of orders dropped 4.7 percent during the month, exceeding analysts' expectations for a decline of 4.5 percent and marking the widest drop since July 2000. Excluding transportation, orders slid 0.8 percent lower; excluding defense, orders were down 3.6 percent. 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. orders were revised marginally lower to reflect a drop of 8.2 percent during October. Finally, the Institute for Supply Management said its non-manufacturing business index for November reached 58.9, slightly higher than October's reading of 57.1, besting economists' hopes for a reading of 55.5. The employment index edged up to 51.6 from 51.0 while the new orders index hit 57.1 after 56.5 in October. Against this backdrop, which has laid some inflation fears to rest, the market averages have posted modest gains. 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). ) is back above the 12,300 mark and is up 27 points. 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. ) has again reached a new multi-year high and is shouldering a slight gain of nearly three points. The tech-rich Nasdaq Composite (COMP) is currently higher by almost seven points. Turning to the small-cap world, the Russell 2000 Index Russell 2000 Index An index measuring the performance of the 2,000 smallest companies in the Russell 3000 Index, which is made up of 3,000 of the biggest U.S. stocks. The Russell 2000 serves as a benchmark for small-cap stocks in the United States. (RUT) crossed above the 800 threshold this morning for the first time in its history but is now higher by just over three points. Kroger (NYSE:KR) visited the earnings confessional today, announcing third-quarter net income of $214.7 million, or 30 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. , two pennies ahead of Wall Street's forecast. Sales for the reporting period climbed 4.8 percent to $14.7 billion, slightly below analysts' consensus view of $14.86 million. Looking forward, KR boosted its fiscal 2006 outlook to earnings-per-share growth of eight to 10 percent, up from the six to eight percent previously targeted. In mid-morning action, the stock has rallied nearly seven percent to post a new annual high. For more information on these stocks or any stock in your portfolio, feel free to visit our Schaeffer's Equity Scorecard feature. Click here to read all of the Today's Market entries: http://www.schaeffersresearch.com/redirect.aspx?CODE=PRMS13C&PAGE=1 . Take advantage of the timely Schaeffer commentaries by signing up for their free e-newsletters -- Opening View, Market Recap and Monday Morning Outlook. Click here to have the Schaeffer's commentaries delivered to you free via email every day and get entered to win an IPod Nano. http://www.schaeffersresearch.com/redirect.aspx?CODE=PRMS13M&PAGE=1. About Schaeffer's Investment Research (www.SchaeffersResearch.com) Schaeffer's Investment Research, founded by Bernie Schaeffer in 1981, is a financial information and trading resources company. It publishes Bernie Schaeffer's Option Advisor, the nation's leading options subscription newsletter. The firm's contrarian approach focuses on stocks with technical and fundamental trends that run counter to investor expectations. The firm's website, http://www.SchaeffersResearch.com , is recognized as one of the leading information sources for stock and options traders and was cited as the top options website by both Forbes and Barron's. Click here for more details about Schaeffer's trading methodology: http://www.SchaeffersResearch.com/method . |
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