Microsoft Ruling Expected by Markets
DAVID HAFFENREFFER, CNN ANCHOR: Not such a bad day for the Nasdaq composite in yesterday's session. It rose 2.2 percent on the today, part of those gains thanks to the rise in Microsoft shares, which rose by seven-eighths in yesterday's session. Of course, the ruling came out after the closing bell.</s>DEBORAH MARCHINI, CNN ANCHOR: But was widely anticipated. Microsoft helping rather than hurting, not only the Nasdaq composite, but the Dow industrials as well. And there were a few other notable movers. Christine Romans is here with a look at what exactly was going on in the market yesterday.</s>CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The interesting thing was, the market was quiet in the early part of the day, really for the whole day, in terms of the Big Board. And they knew that this ruling was going to come out for Microsoft, and still, nobody was even willing to blame the light volume and the skittishness in the early part of the trading day to the Microsoft ruling. They knew this was coming down the pike, and they also know this is just the beginning of the appeals process. So no great shakes from the Microsoft ruling, in terms of trading over at the Big Board. Traders are saying that, you know, short-term, it might not be a kind of trade that you want to make, but longer-term, if you can hold this thing on a multiyear horizon, there still are those people out there who are bullish very long-term on Microsoft shares. But when you talk to traders on the floor about, you know, do you own Microsoft on a short-term horizon, they all say -- you know, you just watch -- you watch the outlook and you can sort of see that reflected in the way Microsoft stock has been trading, although it did trade up on Instinet right after the -- right after the ruling was released. So watch shares of Microsoft. It's not expected to be a big player in terms of the Dow Jones industrial average in the way that that index moves. AT&T;, same story: There was some consumer outcry about a story or published report that AT&T; was going to be upping some of its basic rates after just the FCC and AT&T;, earlier, not very many days earlier, had said that there were some changes under foot, they were going to actually lower consumer phone bills. And you still didn't see a big reaction there either. So big stories in some big stocks and this market is still sort of just plodding along sideways, even though there were some gains in the day: IBM was said to be more than half the gains for the Dow Jones industrial average in the day. Some positive comments on IBM from brokerage houses continuing. We've seen a couple of key brokerage houses saying positive things about IBM. So remember today that about any -- if there's going to be any kind of, you know, delayed reaction to the Microsoft thing, every point move on Microsoft is roughly five points on the Dow; that's a good important way to keep an eye on that. Also, keep an eye on the financials and the tech leadership, they both flexed their muscle yesterday, and traders are saying that's very important to see whether there's going to be a bull market that resumes. Some traders are saying that you have got to see some follow- through from late yesterday's strength in the early going, today they want to see that -- they want to see some more gains today to sort of confirm that maybe there could be a resumption of last week's uptrend.</s>MARCHINI: OK.</s>HAFFENREFFER: Looking for conviction.</s>ROMANS: Exactly.</s>MARCHINI: Thanks, Christine.