Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Street Life Online - The Markets Are Fickle

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"STOCKYARD: Some techs sputtered: Wireless company Nextel Communications slipped 14 cents
to $10.06 despite better-than-expected third-quarter earnings."
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Julia Boorstin

STREET LIFE

The Markets Are Fickle

Dow and Nasdaq pull back on Thursday. The GE speech that wasn't. Plus, Buffett plays a president.

FORTUNE.COM

Thursday, October 24, 2002

By Julia Boorstin

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The Markets Are Fickle

Is This a Mini Bull?

Bulls Take a Breather

Stocks Hit Five-Week High

The Bear Is Dead

Archive

Microsoft

It looked like we were in a good, long stretch of market gains, and even
this morning the indexes flirted with a promising rise. The day started
off on a positive note, with indications that the labor market is
recovering: claims for unemployment benefits fell last week by 25,000.
But by the end of the day the markets took a sharp turn lower as
earnings announcements and news that Iraq is kicking out journalists put
a chill in the market. The Dow dropped 176.93 points to 8,317.34,
dragged down by losses in financials and consumer stocks. The nasty
Nasdaq slipped 21.52 points to 1,298.71, and the S&P 500 skidded down
13.64 points to 882.50.

STOCKYARD: AT&T Wireless posted a quarterly loss, dragged down by its
wireless licenses, but excluding charges, earnings rose as revenue
increased by 16%. The stock [AWE] gained as much as 29% in intraday
trading and closed up $1.00 (more than 18%) to $6.45. Other gainers:
Networking stocks moved higher, with Cisco, Juniper, Nortel, and Lucent
all making gains. Nortel climbed almost 19%, pushing past the crucial $1
mark, but Lucent couldn't quite join in, closing at 98 cents. Some techs
sputtered: Wireless company Nextel Communications slipped 14 cents to
$10.06 despite better-than-expected third-quarter earnings. SBC
Communications posted a third-quarter profit that disappointed analysts.
Though the Dow company reiterated its full-year earnings expectations,
the stock eased 20 cents to $25.65. The other Dow component to report,
Eastman Kodak, said third-quarter earnings were in line with estimates,
but warned of coming layoffs -- the company will slash 1,300 to 1,700
jobs. The stock [EK] added 31 cents to $34.13. Better than expected
earnings aren't necessarily enough, and Viacom won't forget it. Today
the media monster reported net income of 36 cents a share, surpassing
estimates of 32 cents and wowing compared to last year's loss of 41
cents a share. But analysts think the stock was overvalued, so down it
went, losing $2.86 (over 6%!) to $44.32.

GOSSIP ON GE: Today Wall Street was a-twitter with rumors about why
respected Ravi Suria of Duquesne Capital bowed out of his scheduled
speech on GE at Jim Grant's ValueFest. Word had it that Duquesne
Capital's Stanley Druckenmiller asked Suria to pull out under pressure
from GE. A source cleared things up: Wall Street analysts hyped up
Suria's speech and the impact it could have on GE stock in voice mails
blasted throughout firms. Media shy Druckenmiller simply didn't want the
publicity the speech would generate, and that's why he asked Suria to
cancel. GE stock dropped 90 cents to $26.00. You would think they'd have
thought about that in advance...

AOL VS. MSN: Let's not forget FORTUNE's vaunted parent, AOL Time Warner.
After the bell yesterday the company maintained its 2002 financial
growth targets and restated earnings for a two-year period due to
accounting problems at the online unit. But no biggie -- the restatement
only cut the company's revenue by $190 million, not much in the grand
scheme of things. Investors were mighty relieved that third-quarter
revenue grew 6% and the stock, AOL, jumped $1.02 to $14.55. And while a
week ago AOL announced its new software version, today Microsoft is
introducing MSN 8. Surveys say that users prefer MSN 8 to AOL 8, but
we'll see how fast MSN can close the gap (MSN has about 9 million
subscribers, about a quarter of AOL's base). MSFT lost $1.97 to $51.23.

LOOSE CHANGE

Warren Buffett is not only one of the wisest investors ever, he also has
hidden theatrical talent. Earlier this week I encountered Buffett at a
screening of a PBS childrens' series called "Liberty's Kids," which
tells the story of the American Revolution. The high-energy, hip cartoon
is designed to jazz up the 5th grade U.S. history curriculum. Buffett,
as the voice of James Madison, teamed up with Walter Cronkite as Ben
Franklin. The septuagenarian and octogenarian were joined by 16 big-name
Hollywood stars. The roster included everyone from Billy Crystal and
Michael Douglas (Patrick Henry) to the more comical Sylvester Stallone
(Paul Revere) and Arnold Schwarzenegger (Baron von Steuben-- that was a
hoot!)

Luuula, you got me on my knees Lu-la. With the Brazilian presidential
election coming up on Sunday I thought I'd help all you Lula-watchers
prepare. Some trivia: Brazil is the world's wettest country, has the
world's second highest rate of plastic surgery per capita, has as many
cows as people, is the world's fourth largest producer of commercial
airplanes, has the second highest murder rate after Colombia, and is the
only country to have won the World Cup five times. Any predictions on
what the election will do to the Brazilian economy?

Email Julia Boorstin at [email-masked].

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