Nasdaq Trading Preview: Despite Intel Warnings, Futures Posting Gain
DEBORAH MARCHINI, CNN ANCHOR: You might have guessed that Intel's pessimism on sales for their first quarter would have hurt Intel and tech stocks overall, but the Nasdaq futures, in fact, are posting a pretty hefty gain this morning.</s>DAVID HAFFENREFFER, CNN ANCHOR: Not to mention the fact that we're also seeing tech stocks rising overseas today on the word of that Intel earnings report. Sasha Salama's at the Nasdaq marketsite for us this morning. Good morning, Sasha.</s>SASHA SALAMA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, folks. You know, it's curious that Intel isn't down in the pre-market, given the fact that they did lower those earnings estimates and they did come in a penny better, with some qualification. What the Street seems to be looking at, though, is the fact that Intel says it will spend more on research and development in the coming year. Intel is a bellwether, not only of technology in general, but of capital spending going forward. And there you see the details of the report, Intel beating the Street by a penny, but that includes a penny's worth of bigger-than- expected gains on Intel's investments. So that is definitely worth noting. Revenues up slightly. There you see it: $8.7 billion. And the key is that Intel says it will spend more this year versus last year on research and development. Now you probably remember that in early December, Intel did warn about this quarter. You see the sharp drop in fourth quarter earnings there, operating margins down, but there's that capital spending portion of the report, and that seems to be what the Street likes. In fact, in the pre-market, Intel is actually up about a dollar a share, to about 32 1/2, and that's after the stock finished down about two percent yesterday, to the $31 and change level. There you see some other movers today. Allaire, the Web development firm, is merging with Macromedia -- Allaire up on that news. Juniper Networks, a nice rally here. This company makes equipment that speeds traffic along telecom networks. It raised its revenue forecast for the first quarter, and it also beat estimates in the fourth quarter. Still, it's worth noting this company is trading at more than 500 times trailing earnings. Handspring, which makes devices to compete with the Palm electronic organizer, does expect to turn a profit in the fourth quarter. It did lose seven cents a share this time around, but that was nine cents better. One analyst called it a smoking hot quarter for Handspring. And finally, Novellus, which makes computer chip equipment, also rallying, as you see. It says that drop in capital spending will hurt the first half of 2001, but Novellus, nonetheless, did report 76 cents a share. That was six cents better than Wall Street estimates, and the stock is being rewarded in the pre-market, as you see there. So all told, this is pointing to some gains at the open. The Nasdaq 100 futures up nicely, up more than 62 points, and we've got a slate of big names reporting today. The biggest, perhaps, Apple Computer, which already warned about this quarter. Apple expected to lose money. There you see the other companies expected to report. Of course, Advanced Micro Devices is a Big Board stock. So David and Deb, the Street is being very random about what it picks to focus on in these reports, and at least with the Intel story, even though Intel did warn, that rosy outlook for capital spending seems to be giving investors something new to hope about.</s>MARCHINI: All right, thank you, Sasha.