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Earnings news lifts stocks
Stocks rally on positive earnings reports, with the Dow at its highest level in more than a month.
April 22, 2003: 6:20 PM EDT
By Andrew Serwer, FORTUNE

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NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Us worry? Why? Stocks rallied Tuesday on some positive earnings reports, Greenspan news, and what turned out to be a false rumor that Saddam had been captured. What-ever!

The Dow jumped 156.09 to 8484.99, while the NAZ climbed 26.99 to 1451, a three-month high (and when you touch down...). Hey watch me, Peter Frampton (he's 53 -- I wonder if he can still show me the way...), I mean Andy Serwer, on CNN's "American Morning" with Jack Cafferty, and Headline News. Read Loose Change to find out about "Smokey and the Bandit." Here's wazzup:

STOCKYARD How bad could the world be with Coach blowing the doors off in an earnings report? Earnings more than doubled, soundly beating analysts' forecasts. The stock climbed 9 percent to an all-time high of $42 and change. (How many all-time highs have you seen lately?) Kudos to Julia Boorstin for writing this company up last fall when the stock was $27-ish. Wish I owned it!

Big day for Alan Greenspan. He entered the hospital for scheduled prostate surgery, and El Presidente W said that he would support him for another term as Fed Chairman. His current four-year term expires in June 2004, when he will be 78. Reuters reports: "By staying on into 2006, when he would be 80, Greenspan could become the longest-serving U.S. Fed chief, surpassing the record of William McChesney Martin, who led the central bank for nearly 19 years from April 1951 to January 1970."...

Biggest earnings week of the quarter, 40 of the S&P 500 reporting...Nice pop for all the big techs today, while financials and insurance stocks particularly strong over on the Big Board

Hey, ever play Frogger? I'm going to just say it: Coldplay is terrible!

AOL AGAIN Hey, I'm going to write a book about AOL! Just kidding -- did you know that there are currently FOUR being worked on right now? Anyway, interesting day for the mothership. Two separate newspaper stories reporting new allegations of improper revenue recognition. The New York Times writes about a deal with Vivendi, basically a baby Bertelsmann deal.

And the Washington Post has the goods on Monster.com (roundtripping), Catalina Marketing (jackpotting -- which I had never heard of -- it's frontloading), and Dr. Koop (counting a breakup fee as revenue). Hard to believe.

We also hear in the a.m. that AOL is selling its 50 percent stake in Comedy Central ("The Daily Show With Jon Stewart," "South Park"), to Viacom for $1.23 billion. Viacom already owns the other half. (This to reduce debt from $29 billion to a target of $20 billion -- Jessica Reif Cohen saw this one coming.)

But what was MOST interesting to me was the complaint that we just got a copy of, filed by Milberg Weiss (last week) against the company and ALL of its top (and some middle) executives. This document is a MONSTER. I mean, Bill Lerach must have stuck a dozen associates in a conference room for six months and told them not to come out until they had every single nuance of what they perceive to be malfeasance documented. It's 181 pages (plus another dozen or so of exhibits.), with an incredibly detailed annotated gatefold stock chart. And it simply goes on, and on, and on. The time and effort that will be required to respond to this will be immense. But that's the whole point, isn't it?

I remember seeing a Milberg Weiss complaint from about ten years ago, and it was pretty rudimentary. Now Bill Lerach and his crew have made this a fine art. Oh by the way, AOL's stock was up nicely today. So who the hell knows? AOL reports tomorrow, and is expected to post a profit of 11 cents a share, down from 18 cents in the same period last year. (AOL Time Warner is the parent company of CNN/Money.)

BECHTEL AND SHOCK AND AWE So the State Department awarded Bechtel that contract worth up to $680 million to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure, which will include rebuilding airports, helping to repair Iraq's main port Umm Qasr, and possibly hospitals and schools. GW reminds us that Bechtel is the main contractor for the Big Dig in Boston, which has been "a colossal pain in the ass with huge cost over-runs. Methinks the real Iraqi "shock and awe" will begin when these morons start noodling all over the countryside in their CATs!"

Loose change

Deep Blue says: "Nina Simone, RIP...also Felice Bryant, who with her husband Boudleaux, wrote 'Bye Bye Love,' 'Wake Up Little Susie,' and 'Rocky Top.' Ever hear that at Neyland Stadium? That's living!"

Another tidbit on SARS: "There's a run on green veggies in Singgie now. Went to the upscale, pricey supermarket last night and the only green stuff in any reasonable amount was lettuce and artichokes -- lucky I like artichokes."

Larry says: "Whoever won that 'Volvo for life' should get things in writing from Volvo/Ford (i.e., whose life are we talking about? The winner's? Vic Doolan? Mr Ford?) Reason I bring this up is I recollect a story where Burt Reynolds was promised a Camaro 'for life' after his "Smokey and the Bandit" movies caused a surge in sales that lasted years thereafter. One year, Burt had to ask where was his Camaro and was told, in effect (my paraphrasing here), 'Oh, that was for the life of the CEO (Smith?), who promised it to you. He died, so no more Camaros.' " True?

Hey, who is that Scottrade lady? Fresh Direct is like Webvan, only it's alive! This comes from Mike, who has obviously been working waaay too hard: "I was talking with Brad Sampson of Zimmer Holdings (#863), a company that makes orthopedic devices. It made the Fortune 1000 after being spun off from Bristol Meyers Squibb in 2001. According to Sampson, Warsaw, Indiana, with a population of about 12,000, is home of three of the five largest orthopedic product manufacturers IN THE WORLD. The other Warsaw-based companies are DePuy, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, and Biomet (#960)." Dude, one word: Vacation!


Andrew Serwer is editor-at-large of Fortune magazine.

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Most stock quote data provided by BATS. Market indices are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET. Disclaimer. Morningstar: © 2018 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Factset: FactSet Research Systems Inc. 2018. All rights reserved. Chicago Mercantile Association: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices © S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC 2018 and/or its affiliates.