MARKET PREVIEW: Microsoft leads earnings deluge

Jan. 2, 2002 4:43 p.m. PT

2 min read

Earnings will occupy investors Tuesday, with Microsoft and a batch other techs reporting quarterly results. Asian markets were mixed, Europe moved down, and the Dow is set to open slightly lower.

U.S.

After economic news stole the spotlight last week, earnings will come back with a bang Tuesday. Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT), scheduled to report after the bell, is expected to pull in more than the consensus earnings forecast of 42 cents a share. The software giant is expected to report strong earnings as did Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) last week, indicating that Wintel, the microprocessor and operating system pair, is still going strong.

Broadcom (Nasdaq: BRCM), Xilinx (Nasdaq: XLNX), Teradyne (NYSE: TER), Unisys (NYSE: UIS) and DoubleClick (Nasdaq: DCLK) are also expected to report quarterly results Tuesday.

The market will also be busy catching up with news released on holiday-Monday. The merger of JDS Uniphase Corp (Nasdaq: JDSU) and E-Tek Dynamics (Nasdaq: ETEK) in a $15 billion deal should send E-Tek flying. Motorola (NYSE: MOT) also reported stronger-than-expected results Monday.

Expect these stocks to be among Tuesday's most actively traded issues: Caere, E-Tek, Lockheed Martin, Microsoft, Motorola and Red Hat.

Technology stocks closed out a wild week with huge gains Friday as the Nasdaq composite marched up 107 points to 4,064.49. Reassuring economic news propelled the Dow up 141 points to a record close of 11,722.98.

At the Bell

The Dow Jones industrial average may open about 64 points lower. The Standard & Poor's 500 index for June futures contracts was down 8 points to 1470 at 7:31 a.m. EST in 24-hour electronic trading.

The Inter@ctive Week @Net Index was up 5 to 555.27.

Asia

Trading in Asia was mixed. The Nikkei 225 lost 1.24 percent to 19,196, Singapore's Strait Times index slipped 0.95 percent to 2,319 and Hong Kong's Hang Seng was up 1.38 percent to 15,789.

Europe

European markets were slumping. London's FTSE 100 lost 0.18 percent to 6,657. The CAC 40 in Paris slipped 0.80 percent to 5,795 and the Xetra DAX in Frankfurt was down 0.03 percent to 7,256 at 6:49 a.m. EST.

Reuters contributed to this report.