Weekly Wrap

Some weeks are busier than others, like when Temptation Island heats up during the same week the NFL football players are the guests on Wheel of Fortune. I was glued to the TV. Not to mention the Hollywood gossip was enough to make my head spin; Celine Dion had a baby boy three weeks early, Ooops-I-shouldn't-have-sworn-again-and-again Britney Spears got caught on tape spewing obscenities during a concert and Mr. In-treatment-out-of-treatment Robert Downey, Jr. signs on to do another eleven episodes of Ally McBeal!  Phew, what a busy week!

It also happens to be the week leading up to our nation's most celebrated un-official holiday, The Super Bowl. This past week in the Chicks Eye View we talked sports and football. Monday, Chick Kristin pulled Football helmet maker Riddell through the Chick's Dozen, Chick Cheryl wrote about Viacom, Chick Megan dissed me in her Sports Authority article and I gave some hot tips on the Super Bowl commercials that you wouldn't want to miss. I'm exhausted. Oh yeah, this is the weekly market wrap. Pardon me.

Nothing is as exhausting as a major earnings week the same time the Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan speaks. I was pretty much planted in front of my Sony 32 inch all day Thursday. (Don't worry, I did workout, as I don't ever want to have one of those "rap-guy's-girlfriend's-butts". And did you hear the rumors surrounding them?)

Mr. Greenspan spoke for hours to the Senate Budget Committee. (Sen. Hillary Clinton was one of the few Senators that stuck around for all three hours. She was still asking questions when CNBC finally cut away.) He was in support of a major tax cut as he feels the economy is slowing down and that a snip here and snip there just might jump-start things. When he was asked about the economy being in a recession, he side-stepped it a bit by saying, "As far as we can judge, we have had a very dramatic slowing down and, indeed, we are probably very close to zero (growth) at this particular moment. Should current economic weakness spread beyond what now appears likely, having a tax cut in place may, in fact, do noticeable good," he said. The Dow liked it, ending the day up, but the Nasdaq went south. 

Look next week for Al to reappear and continue the jump-starting by lowering interest rates by a half a point to 5.5%. (If this doesn't make sense, here's the simplified version: By lowering taxes, this makes people and corporations happy as they will have more money in their pocket. By lowering interest rates, they will be more willing to go out and spend spend spend. This is the simplified version of what jump-starts an economy. Read Chick Cheryl's article for a bit longer Federal Reserve explanation.

Abby Joseph Cohen came out the next day and said that many people misunderstood what Greenspan said, and that they were making assumptions without even reading over the transcript of the conference. (She read it in its entirety...but would you ever expect less from the Abster?) She said that Greenspan has been alluding to this for three months so the tax cuts shouldn't come as such a big shock.

Many many companies came out with their earnings this week. Fiber Optics Networker, JDSU (JDSU) announced theirs after the bell on Friday and beat the street by two cents per share. This is good news, but they followed with some bad. Growth had been pretty consistent in the high teens (anywhere from 15-20%) but they forewarned that future earnings would only be in the 7-10% range. That's cutting JDSU in half! Justly Disappointing for JD. Telecom spending has been greatly reduced in their major customers, (Nortel and Lucent) which is one of the reasons earnings too will be reduced for JD.

Gillette (G) would probably like to forget their fourth quarter, but nonetheless they announced it. I'm not going to go into details as the whole company is in a restructure/rebuild mode. They didn't beat analyst's expectations, but analysts didn't expect that they were going to shave a few people off the payroll and brush some teeth clean. Gillette makes a Mach3 razors and Oral B Toothbrushes and that was my attempt at humor. They also make Duracell batteries which has a great website in which you can download a hockey rink screensaver. (I need a life.)

Starbucks (SBUX) boosted the market as it announced better than expected first-quarter results. They beat analyst's estimates by two cents a share, and increased revenues by 26% over the same quarter last year. They also RAISED expectations for 2001! (So rare these days.) They plan on opening 1,100 new stores next year, which will put their store total at 5,000 stores worldwide.

E.Piphany (EPNY) came out with some positive results (though I still find it a bummer that their results are in the negative. I am not a patient person.) Chick Susie has been following the company for years, so I'm sure EPNY beating the street by two cents makes her happy. Last year at this time they were at a loss at sixteen cents per share, and this year only eight. That's an epiphany in the right direction.

Investors were giddy over ExxonMobil (XOM) fourth quarter earnings. They were 89% greater than last year! This, of course, due to increased oil prices (stop the insanity, I need gas). Last year they raked in 2.88 billion and this year they made 5.22 billion. Pretty slick for the oil company.

Are you getting sick of earnings estimates? So am I. Two Chick companies Pfizer and EMC both announced their 4th quarter earnings this week. Pfizer came in at analyst's expectations and EMC beat 'em. Chick Susie also follows EMC and did a wonderful report.

I can't continue. I'm done. I'm earnings-estimated out. If you are interested one of the companies below that announced their earnings this week, I suggest you type in their ticker symbol at one of the following websites (fool.com , marketguide.com, bigcharts.com) and check out the news. Here's who reported and their results in an eggshell:  (Can I say Go Ravens here? What the heck, Go Ravens!!!)

Chick Karin

American Express (NYSE: AXP) -- Q4 EPS: $0.50 vs. $0.44 last year; estimate: $0.50

Applied Biosystems (NYSE: ABI) -- Q2 EPS: $0.26 vs. $0.20 last year; estimate: $0.25

Avon Products (NYSE: AVP) -- Q4 EPS: $0.65 (excluding one-time items) vs. $0.58 last year; estimate: $0.65

Bausch & Lomb (NYSE: BOL) -- Q4 EPS: $0.70 (excluding charges) vs. $0.88 (excluding charges) last year; estimate: $0.69

BellSouth (NYSE: BLS) -- Q4 EPS: $0.59 vs. $0.55 last year; estimate: $0.59

Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. (NYSE: BMY) -- Q4 EPS: $0.59 vs. $0.52 last year; estimate $0.58

Broadwing Inc. (NYSE: BRW) -- Q4 EPS: ($0.18) (excluding non-recurring items) vs. ($0.50) last year; estimate: ($0.20)

Celera Genomics Grp. (NYSE: CRA) -- Q2 EPS: ($0.49) vs. ($0.47) last year; estimate: ($0.58)

Chevron (NYSE: CHV) -- Q4 EPS: $2.39 (excluding special items) vs. $1.24 last year; estimate: $2.21

Conoco (NYSE: COC.A) and (NYSE: COC.B) -- Q4 EPS: $0.91 (before special items) vs. $0.51 last year; estimate: $0.85

DuPont (NYSE: DD) -- Q4 EPS: $0.47 (excluding onetime items) vs. $0.55 last year; estimate: $0.46

Dynegy Inc. (NYSE: DYN) -- Q4 EPS: $0.32 vs. $0.19 last year; estimate: $0.29

Eli Lilly and Co. (NYSE: LLY) -- Q4 EPS: $0.70 vs. $0.71 last year; estimate: $0.70

Enron (NYSE: ENE) -- Q4 EPS: $0.41 (excluding charges) vs. $0.31 last year; estimate: $0.35

EMC Corp. (NYSE: EMC) -- Q4 EPS: $0.25 vs. $0.17 (excluding charges) last year; estimate: $0.23

General Dynamics (NYSE: GD) -- Q4 EPS: $1.09 vs. $0.98 last year; estimate: $1.07

Health Management Associates Inc. (NYSE: HMA) -- Q1 EPS: $0.16 vs. $0.14 last year; estimate: $0.16

Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) -- Q4 EPS: $0.65 (excluding special charges) vs. $0.56 last year; estimate: $0.64

K-Swiss (Nasdaq: KSWS) -- Q4 EPS: $0.32 vs. $0.44 last year; estimate: $0.26

Kellogg Co. (NYSE: K) -- Q4 EPS: $0.35 (excluding charges) vs. $0.34 last year; estimate: $0.33

Knight-Ridder (NYSE: KRI) -- Q4 EPS: $1.09 (excluding non-recurring items) vs. $1.03 last year (excluding non-recurring items); estimate: $1.07

Lexmark Intl. (NYSE: LXK) -- Q4 EPS: $0.64 (excluding charges) vs. $0.73 last year; estimate: $0.61

McDonald's (NYSE: MCD) -- Q4 EPS: $0.34 vs. $0.35 last year; estimate: $0.35

Merck (NYSE: MRK) -- Q4 EPS: $0.75 vs. $0.66; estimate: $0.75

Merrill Lynch (NYSE: MER) -- Q4 EPS: $0.93 vs. $0.91 last year; estimate: $0.88

Northrop Grumman (NYSE: NOC) -- Q4 EPS: $1.99 vs. $1.98 last year; estimate: $1.97

Phillips Petroleum (NYSE: P) -- Q4 EPS: $2.72 (excluding special items) vs. $0.84 last year; estimate: $2.28

Pfizer (NYSE: PFE) -- Q4 EPS: $0.27 (excluding charges) vs. $0.23 last year; estimate: $0.27

Praxair Inc. (NYSE: PX) -- Q4 EPS: $0.76 vs. $0.70 last year; estimate: $0.76

Ralston Purina Company (NYSE: RAL) -- Q1 EPS: $0.28 (before special items) vs. $0.30 (pro forma) last year; estimate: $0.30

Qwest Communications (NYSE: Q) -- Q4 EPS: $0.16 (pro forma) vs. $0.11 last year; estimate: $0.14

Schering-Plough Corp. (NYSE: SGP) -- Q4 EPS: $0.39 vs. $0.34 last year; estimate: $0.39

T. Rowe Price (Nasdaq: TROW) -- Q4 EPS: $0.43 vs. $0.55 last year; estimate: $0.50

Tellabs (Nasdaq: TLAB) -- Q4 EPS: $0.56 (before one-time items) vs. $0.39 last year; estimate: $0.56

Texaco (NYSE: TX) -- Q4 EPS: $1.55 (before special items) vs. $0.67 last year; estimate: $1.51

Tollgrade Communications (Nasdaq: TLGD) -- Q4 EPS: $0.58 vs. $0.39 last year; estimate: $0.51

Weyerhaeuser Co. (NYSE: WY) -- Q4 EPS: $0.88 vs. $0.79 last year; estimate: $0.78

Closing Market Numbers: