Nasdaq Bullish on Oracle Earnings Report
ALLAN CHERNOFF, CNN ANCHOR: OK, thank you very much Brian and the futures are pointing to a dramatically higher open and Jennifer Westhoven is standing by here. Our morning market call, Jennifer looking a little better for the Nasdaq today.</s>JENNIFER WESTHOVEN, CNN MARKETS EDITOR: It sure is, and Nasdaq traders who are bullish can thank Larry Ellison for that because that really seems to be the key to what is going on this morning. Oracle really carrying the day. It's interesting because the market, of course has been slipping a lot lately. Yesterday, old economy stocks, blue chip stocks, kind of stabilized, but the Nasdaq down another 2 percent -- still lots of concern there. Still, Oracle's good news is really offsetting this continuing parade of bad news that we are getting or negative news. Solectron is a big contract manufacturer. They came out -- OK, they almost made estimates, but they had warning their sales were also disappointing -- excuse me, not a warning, but their sales were seen as very disappointing there. Also American Airlines -- AMR is their parent company, of course, and they also are the parent of TWA now. They came out, too, and chimed in right behind Delta, which on Friday was talking about weak earnings. So these two companies saying that the big cutbacks in business spending mean fewer executives are traveling and they're going to make fewer dollars.</s>CHERNOFF: But the focus this morning likely on Oracle, a ray of hope in that technology desert.</s>WESTHOVEN: It is -- they are still working there. But it's interesting that the market is shaking off the negative news that's out there and saying, you know, we've heard enough, at least for this morning. So, the question is going to be the bounce that we see this morning after that opening bell, how broad will it be and how high will it go? Will it be able to carry up the other software companies and then, of course, the other thing that the market will be watching for is the numbers from the housing market. They'll need to stand up for Oracle to really -- this bloom on the rose, shall we say, from Oracle, to really keep its leg going through the market today.</s>CHERNOFF: The housing numbers, really, will tell us how the consumer is doing and that's critical to the state of the economy.</s>WESTHOVEN: Right and let's take a look at those numbers. You take a look at the forecast, it's expected to pull back slightly to about 1.59 million units on an annualized basis, but I'll show you a graph of this. Even though it has been pulling back a little bit lately, still very strong. You look at those sort of weak numbers back there in 2000, and this is considered a very strong market. Even auto sales have kind of tailed off a little bit lately. Before, that was also seen as a positive strength, too.</s>CHERNOFF: OK and Jennifer, in fact, the futures we have on our board now for the Nasdaq, 100 accounting for fair value. That would indicate a rise of about 47 points in the Nasdaq 100 this morning.</s>WESTHOVEN: Yes.</s>CHERNOFF: That would be a powerful open.</s>WESTHOVEN: Maybe we'll get away from that 1900 level that's been scaring a lot of traders lately.</s>CHERNOFF: Right. Everybody looking for back above 2,000 on the Nasdaq...</s>WESTHOVEN: Right.</s>CHERNOFF: ... composite</s>WESTHOVEN: Right.</s>CHERNOFF: Jennifer Westhoven, thanks much. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com