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MARKET PREVIEW: Techs rocky on earnings waves

2 min read

Profit surprises and IPOs should cap Tuesday's waves reverberating from the earnings released by kingpins IBM and Microsoft last night. Asia was up, Europe edged down, and the Dow is set to open lower.

U.S.

Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) and IBM (NYSE: IBM) both reported earnings above expectations after market close Monday, though Microsoft tempered the good news with predictions that growth is likely to slow next year. Now that the big news is out, profit-taking may hit.

On the economic front, the government is set to release the latest reading on the international trade deficit. The deficit for May is expected to rise to $19.2 billion, from $18.9 billion in the previous month.

Expect the following to be among Tuesday's tech movers: IBM (NYSE: IBM), Informix (Nasdaq: IFMX), Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT), Nextel (Nasdaq: NXTL), Qualcomm (Nasdaq: QCOM) and Tellabs Inc. (Nasdaq: TLAB).

Investors took no chances and took a few profits of their own Monday as they braced to hear about profits from a pair of technology giants. The Nasdaq Composite Index fell 34.10 to 2830.38 and the S&P 500 slid 11.12 to 1407.66 on a day of moderate volume, as Wall Street waited for quarterly reports from Microsoft and IBM. The @100 Index slipped 47.99 to 5,292.09 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 22.16 to 11,187.68.

At the Bell

The Dow Jones industrial average may inch about 27 points lower. The Standard & Poor's 500 index for June futures contracts was down 3.4 points to 1415 at 7:35 a.m. EST in 24-hour electronic trading.

The Inter@ctive Week @Net Index lost 7.83 to 313.26.

Asia

Trading in Asia was on an upswing. Singapore's Strait Times index gained 0.78 percent to 2,137 and Hong Kong's Hang Seng grew 1.14 percent to 13,600. The Nikkei 225 was closed for a holiday.

Europe

European markets were taking a breather. London's FTSE 100 fell 0.11 percent to 6,476. The CAC 40 in Paris lost 0.26 percent to 4,606 and the Xetra DAX in Frankfurt was even at 5,624 at 6:30 a.m. EST.

Reuters contributed to this report.