Volatile Nasdaq Expected as Earnings Continue to Gush Forth
JOHN DEFTERIOS, CNN ANCHOR: After yesterday's drubbing on the Street, we have some relief in the futures market if this equation holds. S&P; futures are up seven, Nasdaq futures are stronger and the bond is quiet, yield at 6.65 in London.</s>DEBORAH MARCHINI, CNN ANCHOR: Well, they saw some heavy selling, yesterday, in the Nasdaq market in particular. Let's see if things are looking up a little bit today. Sasha Salama standing by at the Nasdaq marketsite now. Sasha, what have you got?</s>SASHA SALAMA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Deborah and John. We had some very heavy selling, yesterday, on the heaviest volume we've ever seen, nearly two billion shares changing hands. Analysts tell me that's a sure sign of more volatility to come, and we certainly saw volatility, yesterday. Today, Nasdaq 100 futures are up 35 points; that bodes for a nice advance when trading gets under way. But because of the volatility, really anything could happen between now and then. There are some cross currents in the market, here. First of all, analysts telling me that big institutions have been shifting money out of stocks and into bonds with bonds relatively inexpensive in price, here. This comes amid signs most recently from two voting members of the FOMC that the Fed does plan to keep raising interest rates, this year. How far? We don't know, but the bias is definitely toward raising rates. Also, we've got earnings season right in the middle of the heaviest part of the earnings season. Better-than-expected results normally bodes well for a stock. We got better-than-expected results after the bell, yesterday, from About.com, BOUT; Concentric Networks, CNCX; Digital Island, ISLD; and Drugstore.com, DSCM. Whether or not that would translate to strong stock advances today remains to be seen. We've also got results out today from a slew of key Nasdaq companies, including eBay; two cents expected there, an actual profit from the online auctioneer expected. Amgen, the big biotech giant: 25 cents expected after the bell. RealNetworks is expecting an earnings of five cents a share compared to a loss in the year-ago-period; that's RNWK. Qualcomm, the darling of the Nasdaq last year, really got hammered, yesterday. It's expected to report 24 cents after the bell. And BMC Software expected with 42 cents after the bell -- John and Deborah.</s>DEFTERIOS: So far the earnings look good, but that doesn't seem to be helping anybody out. Thanks a lot, Sasha, down at the Nasdaq/Amex marketsite.