Rising oil prices helped ChevronTexaco Corp to a 60 percent rise in third-quarter profits, though part of the gains came from one-time sales of non-strategic assets. With that gain aside, however, the US' second-largest oil company missed Wall Street profit forecasts by US$0.03 per share. ChevronTexaco climbed US$0.59 to US$53.06.
Investigations of the insurance industry continued, with Connecticut's attorney general subpoenaing Allstate Corp in its probe of bid-rigging and price fixing throughout the industry. Allstate nonetheless gained US$0.39 to US$48.09, while previous investigation targets Marsh & McLellan Inc was down US$0.56 at US$27.66 and American International Group Inc dropped US$0.50 to US$60.71.
Halliburton Co gained US$0.79 to US$37.04 despite an Associated Press report that the FBI has launched a probe into whether the US government improperly awarded no-bid contracts to the company for services in Iraq.
The US Food and Drug Administration said Merck & Co's new pain reliever Arcoxia, was "approvable" pending further review of clinical data. Arcoxia, which Merck hopes will replace the discredited Vioxx arthritis drug, was not expected to be approved. Merck lost US$0.26 to US$31.31.
Merck rival Bristol Myers-Squibb Co slipped US$0.58 to US$23.43 after the drug maker reported a 16 percent drop in profits for the third quarter. The company's results were in line with Wall Street expectations.
Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by about 5 to 4 on the New York Stock Exchange, where preliminary consolidated volume came to 1.85 billion shares, compared with 2.09 billion at the same point on Thursday.
The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies was down 1.84, or 0.31 percent, at 583.79.
RSS