Chicks Eye View: Weekly Wrap

Hey, it's me again! I know I say that every week is the busiest week of my life, but last week really was. If you noticed, I totally weaseled out of doing the market wrap on Friday. We were in the middle of Chick Fest and running around with our heads cut off and something had to give. It was the wrap. But never fear, Chick Karin's here, and I'm going to do double duty this week. I've spent this past week up at the lake with Chick Susie and we've had some real good re-grouping time. (She even had time to post a frivolous item on Sun's CEO and his speech at a conference. Susie never posts frivolously.) Susie and I even had a few extra moments to hop on down to the local casino. Total for the week... down $45.00. So stupid... but the conversations are worth it.

First, Chick Fest took place this last weekend, and if that ain't the biggest news to hit this market site, I don't know what is. To read more about the Fest, click here. It was a blast.

Secondly, as I write this, Chick Megan is being induced with her third baby. She was supposed to be induced on Monday, then on Tuesday, and then Thursday. Well, they finally got her in today!! As soon as we know the particulars on the little Chick (which it is), we'll put it up on the site. We Chicks have a side bet on the length and weight of her baby Chickeeta. I sure hope Megan has a digital camera!!

COMPANY	SYMBOL	ACTUAL	ESTIMATE	LAST YEAR SAME QTR
Monday
American Express	AXP	0.13	0.13	0.54
Colgate-Palmolive	CL	0.47	0.47	0.42
Archer-Daniels-Midland	ADM	0.09	0.17	0.11
Tupperware	TUP	0.50	0.52	0.53
Texas Instruments	TXN	0.03	0.02	0.31
Conoco	COCB	0.95	0.85	0.73
Check Point	CHKP	0.33	0.32	0.17
Tuesday
McDonald's	MCD	0.34	0.34	0.39
Pulte	PHM	1.40	1.30	1.15
Omnicom	OMC	0.81	0.81	0.70
Chevron	CHV	2.15	2.06	1.70
Exxon Mobil	XOM	0.64	0.65	0.59
Noble Affiliates	NBL	0.91	0.88	0.66
Kulicke & Soffa	KLIC	-0.10	-0.18	0.68
Lucent Tech	LU	-0.35	-0.21	0.30
St. Paul Companies	SPC	0.39	0.38	0.69
Wednesday
DuPont (EI) De Nemours	DD	0.41	0.40	0.90
Schlumberger	SLB	0.32	0.38	0.27
Electronic Data Systems	EDS	0.62	0.62	0.53
Norfolk Southern	NSC	0.28	0.28	0.26
Anheuser-Busch	BUD	0.58	0.58	0.52
Corning	GLW	0.09	0.18	0.31
Compaq	CPQ	0.04	0.04	0.21
SBC Comm	SBC	0.61	0.57	0.56
Bristol-Myers	BMY	0.56	0.56	0.49
Thursday
Tricon Global	YUM	0.73	0.71	0.76
Starwood Hotels	HOT	0.55	0.55	0.56
Amgen	AMGN	0.30	0.28	0.28
Lockheed Martin	LMT	0.33	0.29	0.29
Anadarko Petroleum	APC	1.50	1.30	0.56
Kellogg	K	0.28	0.28	0.41
Qualcomm	QCOM	0.22	0.21	0.27
JDS Uniphase	JDSU	-0.36	0.03	0.14
WorldCom	WCOM	0.20	0.20	0.26
Friday
Swift Transportation	SWFT	0.12	0.10	0.26

COMPANY	SYMBOL	ACTUAL	ESTIMATE	LAST YEAR SAME QTR
Monday
Fifth Third Bancorp	FITB	0.58	0.58	0.46
Citigroup	C	0.74	0.73	0.65
Tuesday
International Paper	IP	0.13	0.05	0.75
General Motors	GM	1.26	1.14	2.93
Guidant	GDT	0.38	0.37	0.40
Washington Mutual	WM	0.91	0.81	0.61
Johnson & Johnson	JNJ	0.51	0.53	0.47
Caterpillar	CAT	0.78	0.71	0.90
Black & Decker	BDK	0.51	0.54	0.97
Intel	INTC	0.12	0.10	0.50
Wednesday
Ford	F	-0.30	-0.34	1.18
J.P Morgan Chase	JPM	0.64	0.65	0.95
Boeing	BA	0.95	0.91	0.71
IBM	IBM	1.15	1.16	1.06
EMC	EMC	0.05	0.08	0.19
i2 Technologies	ITWO	-0.16	-0.11	0.05
AOL Time Warner	AOL	0.32	0.28	0.23
Centex	CTX	1.22	1.10	0.81
Tellabs	TLAB	0.02	0.00	0.39
Coca Cola	KO	0.45	0.43	0.42
United Technologies	UTX	1.16	1.15	1.00
Thursday
Georgia Pacific	GP	0.32	-0.01	1.20
Sears	S	0.96	0.93	1.05
Southwest Airlines	LUV	0.22	0.22	0.24
United Parcel Service	UPS	0.55	0.54	0.60
Sun Microsystems	SUNW	0.04	0.03	0.20
Nokia	NOK	0.14	0.14	0.19
PepsiCo	PEP	0.44	0.43	0.38
Microsoft	MSFT	0.43	0.42	0.44
PMC-Sierra	PMCS	-0.08	-0.07	0.23
Nortel	NT	-0.48	-0.48	0.18
Friday
Merck	MRK	0.78	0.78	0.73
Gillette	G	0.22	0.22	0.28

Also, I'm going to let you in a secret. When I am doing the research for the market wraps, or miss a day of getting the newspaper, or just plain old take a month off and go to Europe, I check in over at SmartMoney.com and look at their Market Archive. It highlights the big stories, the "all you need to know".Just another little Chick Tip for ya.

A couple of newsworthy items that I also found these past two weeks include my favorite.Tupperware (TUP)! Remember that article I wrote on them a while back? Well, it looks like you will soon be seeing the Chick container favorite in Target (TGT) stores near you!In October, Tupperware will be selling fifty types of their plastic food storage products through Target's SuperTarget stores. Do they not know that this will put an end to my social life? I hope to God they don't start selling Party Lite candles in Target too. I've got to get out sometime. Oh wait, there's still Mary Kay.

Philip Morris (MO) posted a rise in their second-quarter profits, but warned that their predictions for the full-year might have been a bit high. Looks like not as many people are smoking (Marlboro) and drinking (Miller) their way through these slow economic times as they thought.

Well they sure aren't eatin' or drinking any soup. It's something the Campbell Soup Co. (CPB) is trying to work on. They named new a CEO this past January who has big restructuring plans for the company. They announced this past week that they are going to slash their annual dividend by 30% so they can spend more money on marketing and revamping their product. (I guess they have some new ingredients in mind.) His plan also goes beyond soup, and includes some other brands they've either acquired or are heavily invested in; Pepperidge Farm, Godiva and Arnott's brands; Prego, Pace, and Homepride sauces as well as the V8 brand of juices. I can hardly wait for the new products, I'll have both my spoon and fork ready.

Speaking of food... Kraft Foods (KFT), the world's largest food company and a newly acquired company by the Chick Fest Flockers, reported their earnings during this past couple of weeks. They beat analyst's estimates, unlike the Kellogg Co. (K), the second-largest U.S. cereal maker behind General Mills Inc. (GIS). (Note: Chicks researched all three of these companies at the Fest and decided that Kraft was best). Kellogg reported on Thursday that their second-quarter earnings fell by 31 percent! But, take into consideration this was part of the cost of acquiring and integrating cookie maker Keebler Foods.

In Tech news... our baby, America Online (AOL) was making headlines. On Monday they invested $100 million into Amazon.com (AMZN). Amazon said they would entertain the idea of being bought out by AOL as long as it was done quietly. Believe me, I won't keep it quiet around here. You'll be the first to know as I own stock in both companies.

AOL and Compaq (CPQ) also made news together. Compaq, one of the first personal computer makers to break away from Microsoft (MSFT), reported that they will be giving AOL exclusive desktop space on their on their PC's running Microsoft's Windows XP software. This comes on the heals of the U.S. Court of Appeals finding that Microsoft holds a monopoly on their Windows Operating System. In response, Microsoft said that PC makers could give preference to whomever they want on the start up screen. Chalk one up to AOL for grabbing Compaq.

In other tech news, it was bad news for JDS Uniphase Corp. (JDU).They reported a huge loss to the tune of $50.6 billion. I don't even know how much money that is, but it is the largest loss reported in U.S. corporate history. Yikes. Their reasoning was that they said they had paid too much for companies purchased in the past few years. They miscalculated by $39 billion and the rest was just a slow down in orders. They don't see a positive reversal anytime soon.

The world's largest bio-tech company, Amgen Inc, (AMGN) beat analysts expectations by six cents this past week, which made me happy. I own them. They reported that they are getting some solid sales out of their anemia drug Epogen and immunity-boosting drug Neupogen. They also said that they are still expecting year-end 2001 to look pretty good! Yee Haa Amgen!

Well, that's it, a double duty market wrap. Now I'm off to The Goose Crossing, a little restaurant in Nevis, MN, for some more relaxing conversation with Chick Susie. One last Chick Tip: Both Tom Cruise and Julia Roberts have been sited at the restaurant. I swear you'd miss it if you sneezed while driving down Hwy 34, but now that you know what to look for, you'll have to stop in. See how much you learn here?