MARKET PREVIEW: Techs eye economic data

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

2 min read

Techs should protect the 3,000 mark from profit takers Thursday, but won't make any bold moves ahead of Friday's employment data. Asia was up, Europe was mixed, and the Dow is set to open higher.

U.S.

While investors hold out for Friday's monthly jobs report for a reading on the labor market, the Labor Department's weekly report on jobless claims will be released Thursday.

A mixed bag of news is also on deck. Better-than-expected results from Digital Island (Nasdaq: ISLD), and a worse-than expected loss from BlueFly (Nasdaq: BFLY) are set to move both stocks today. Also, Ditech Communications Corp. (Nasdaq: DITC) said it expects to double First Call's estimate of a profit of 26 cents a share for second-quarter earnings. The telecom equipment maker said it may post profit of 58 cents a share.

Among new issues, Tickets.com (Nasdaq: TIXX) priced at $12.50 a share after raising its range to $10 - $12 from $7 - $9. Pac-West Telecomm Inc. (Nasdaq: PACW) has also priced 12.6 million shares at $10 apiece, the low end of its range.

Expect the following technology stocks to be among Thursday's most actively traded issues: Bluefly, Digital Island, E-Stamp and Scient.

Technology investors finally kicked the door in Wednesday as the Nasdaq composite closed up 46 points to an all-time high of 3,027.84. The Dow Jones industrial average closed up 27 points to 10,609.06.

At the Bell

The Dow Jones industrial average may open about 74 points lower. The Standard & Poor's 500 index for June futures contracts was up 9.5 points to 1370 at 7:41 a.m. EST in 24-hour electronic trading.

The Inter@ctive Week @Net Index was up 9 to 365.22.

Asia

Trading in Asia was on an upswing. The Nikkei 225 rose 1.98 percent to 18,348, Singapore's Strait Times index gained 1.05 percent to 2,110 and Hong Kong's Hang Seng was up 2.97 percent to 13,652.

Europe

Most European markets were moving up. London's FTSE 100 rose 0.34 percent to 6,302. The CAC 40 in Paris slipped 0.02 percent to 4,917 and the Xetra DAX in Frankfurt was up 0.41 percent to 5,584 at 6:54 a.m. EST.

Reuters contributed to this report.