Friday, February 2, 2007

Morning Market Comment 2/2/2007

The direction of trading for the stock market, the dollar and bonds will be set by non farm payrolls at 8:30... more after the report arrives.

Apple Computer shares are lower by about a half buck. The Steve Jobs options scandal just won't go away. There's fresh news this morning: http://www.law.com/jsp/ca/PubArticleCA.jsp?id=1170237762721.

Amazon.com (AMZN) wasn't able to fool everyone yesterday. Bear Stearns downgraded the stock to 'underperform' from 'Outperform'. Bear says the downgrade reflects the company's profit margin erosion which year over year dropped for the fourth consecutive quarter in Q4.

Citigroup reiterated a 'sell' on Amazon saying a 20 basis point margin decline, or what they call "negative leverage" cannot support a 50 p/e stock.

Speaking of upgrades and downgrades, Bank of America upgraded Microsoft to BUY with a $35 price target. BOFA sees a solid growth outlook with fiscal '08 earnings of $1.72 on revs of $57 bln.

Gold resting (April contract) at just above $661. Crude up 35c. Nat gas flat.

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