Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Phone stocks sizzle on AT&T, Nextel

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 23 Apr 2003 21:33:53 -0400

Phone stocks sizzle on AT&T, Nextel

By Jeffry Bartash, CBS.MarketWatch.com
Last Update: 5:01 PM ET April 23, 2003

NEW YORK (CBS.MW) -- Phone stocks raced higher in Wednesday trading after solid earnings
reports
by AT&T, Nextel Communications and BellSouth. Yet equipment vendors remained stuck in
neutral.

On Tuesday, all 13 phone stocks in the Standard & Poor's Communications
Services Index ended on the positive side of the ledger. Nearly every equity rose by 3
percent or considerably
more.

AT&T (T: news, chart, profile) was the star performer, shooting 23 percent higher to
$17.01 after recording
stronger-than-expected profit. See full story.

Nextel (NXTL: news, chart, profile) jumped 10.7 percent to $13.67 upon posting its fourth
straight quarterly profit.
See full story.

And BellSouth (BLS: news, chart, profile) hopped 11.5 percent to $24.21, as investors
applauded the carrier's
effort to cut costs and slow a recent downward trend in sales. See full story.

The day before, phone stocks fell after Sprint delivered less-than-stellar quarterly
results. That briefly stoked
concerns -- unwarranted as it turns out - of an industrywide trend.

Still, the pressure remains on phone carriers, who've achieved better results primarily
through cost cuts and not
sales growth. Indeed, AT&T and BellSouth both saw sales decline slightly.

As part of expense control, phone companies continue to lower spending plans on network
upgrades and
maintenance. AT&T, for example, said it will further reduce capital expenditures in 2003
by as much as $500
million.

Lower network spending doesn't bode well for equipment vendors.

Lucent Technologies on Wednesday acknowledged that it expects industry weakness to linger
through 2003.
Still, the company managed to boost first-quarter sales and move closer to profitability
after 12 straight quarters of
losses. See full story.

Lucent (LU: news, chart, profile) shares rose 4 cents to $1.72. It was one of seven stocks
in the American Stock
Exchange's networking index to advance, though most only gained a few pennies.

That index, which dropped 0.6 percent, has 15 stocks. Declines of 2-3 percent in Alcatel
(ALA: news, chart,
profile), Ciena (CIEN: news, chart, profile) and Tellabs (TLAB: news, chart, profile)
dragged the whole group lower.

Yet the Nasdaq Telecommunications Index, which tracks younger equipment manufacturers and
phone carriers,
increased 1.6 percent.

Thirteen of the 20 largest stocks rose, with Nextel leading the charge.

Late Wednesday, AT&T Wireless (AWE: news, chart, profile) and Qualcomm (QCOM: news, chart,
profile)
reported quarterly results.

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/yhoo/story.asp?source=blq/yhoo&siteid=yhoo&dist=yhoo&guid=%7B2826BB33%2DBB9C%2D47FC%2DA9B8%2D377194F68730%7D