MARKET PREVIEW: Earnings optimism may fuel techs
Techs should continue full steam ahead Monday as record highs on the Nasdaq fuel them into earnings season. Asia and Europe were mostly higher, and the Dow is set to open flat.
U.S.
Earnings kick into high gear this week, with Intel and Apple scheduled to report.
Though there's not much moving on the economic front Monday, Walt Disney (NYSE: DIS) will be shaking the markets on news it plans to buy search engine Infoseek Corp. (Nasdaq: SEEK) and start a Web venture. Disney already owns 42 percent of Infoseek, and will own 72 percent of the new venture, called Go.com.
The markets look optimistic for earnings season across the board, and overseas. Tokyo stocks surged to their highest close Monday in nearly two years, gaining on heavy investment in technology shares by overseas buyers.
Expect the following technology stocks to be among Monday's most actively traded issues: Applied Materials Inc. (Nasdaq: AMAT), Conexant Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CNXT), eToys Inc (Nasdaq: ETYS) Inprise Inc. (Nasdaq: INPR), New Era of Networks Inc. (Nasdaq: NEON), and Youbet.com Inc. (Nasdaq: UBET).
Another report signaling a strong U.S. economy helped push the Dow Jones industrial average up 67 points to 11193.70 Friday while the Nasdaq composite rose 21 points to close another record high of 2,793.06.
At the Bell
The Dow Jones industrial average is set to open flat. The Standard & Poor's 500 index for June futures contracts was up 0.2 points to 1414 at 7:30 a.m. EST in 24-hour electronic trading.
The Inter@ctive Week @Net Index rose 2.13 to 327.
Asia
Trading in Asia was mostly up. The Nikkei 225 rose 1.88 percent to 18,274. Singapore's Strait Times index rose 0.35 percent to 4,664 and Hong Kong's Hang Seng fell 1.13 percent to 14,061.
Europe
European markets were also higher. London's FTSE 100 rose 0.46 percent to 6,592. The CAC 40 in Paris gained 0.28 percent to 4,477 and the Xetra DAX in Frankfurt was up 0.30 percent to 5,655 at 7:00 a.m. EST.
Reuters contributed to this report.