Schaeffer's S&P 500 Index Hot Stocks Features Robert Half International, Broadcom, Halliburton, Sanmina-SCI, and Leggett & Platt

Business Wire, July 22, 2005

CINCINNATI -- Among the stocks featured in the July 22 edition of Schaeffer's S&P 500 Index Hot Stocks are Robert Half International (NYSE:RHI), Broadcom (NASDAQ:BRCM), Halliburton (NYSE:HAL), Sanmina-SCI (NASDAQ:SANM), and Leggett & Platt (NYSE:LEG). Schaeffer's S&P 500 Index Hot Stocks is just one of the many free market commentaries written every day at www.SchaeffersResearch.com - the home of Bernie Schaeffer and Schaeffer's Investment Research. For additional information about this report or to have it delivered to you free via email every day click on the following link. http://www.schaeffersresearch.com/redirect.aspx?CODE=PRSHS1M&PAGE=1 .

Schaeffer's S&P 500 Index Hot Stocks for Friday, July 22, 2005:

A daily feature available on SchaeffersResearch.com is the "SPX Hot Stocks" column. Each afternoon, we will provide a list of the day's top-20 performing stocks in the S&P 500 Index (SPX - 1,231.85) as well as the bottom-20 names. Featured along with this table will be news that is moving some of the securities.

NOTE: Stocks trading under $5 per share have been eliminated from this listing of the top-20 and bottom-20 performing stocks.

With only an hour left, the SPX is down very slightly on the day. We are still in the middle of earnings season, and it comes as no surprise that all of today's hot stocks have landed on the list thanks, for good or ill, to earnings reports. At last check, 67.6 percent of SPX members were holding on to positive territory.

Staffing agency Robert Half International (NYSE:RHI) is up more than 14 percent after announcing record second-quarter revenues and earnings yesterday. Net income was $57.2 million or 33 cents per share, on revenues of $816.7 million. Net income for the year-ago period was $32.4 million or 18 cents per share, on revenues of $641.2 million. In response to the news, JMP Securities reiterated the stock at "market perform." The stock closed at 29.23 yesterday, but gapped up sharply this morning, eventually rejected at the 35 level.

Broadcom (NASDAQ:BRCM) was another big winner thanks, again, to an earnings report. Yesterday, the company revealed that net income for the second quarter was $15.1 million, or four cents per share, compared with GAAP net income of $69.2 million, or 19 cents per share, for the first quarter. The decrease in net income was primarily attributable to costs (amounting to about $110 million) of class action litigation against the company and certain of its current and former officers and directors. So far I have seen one broker comment, reiterating the stock at "buy."

Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) is also benefiting today from its after-the-bell second-quarter report yesterday. A Dow Jones Newswires report stated that HAL "swung to a second-quarter profit with strong results from its oil-field services unit, which provides specialized services and technologies to energy companies."

Kellogg Brown & Root, HAL's contracting and construction unit, posted strong income figures, as the military paid the company fees for its work supporting the troop deployment in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But all is not good news. Yesterday, a British court ruled that two HAL patents on drill-bits were invalid, in a case involving competitor Smith International (SII). Last August, a District Court in Texas ordered SII to pay HAL $41 million for patent infringement. HAL stated that it hoped the British ruling would be reversed.

PMC-Sierra (PMCS) provides high-speed broadband communications and storage semiconductors and MIPS-Powered microprocessors. The stock was down more than six percent this afternoon on second-quarter results that showed net income in the second quarter of 2005 was $0.5 million (GAAP diluted earnings per share of zero cents) compared with GAAP net income of $3.3 million in the first quarter of 2005.

Sanmina-SCI (NASDAQ:SANM) is a noteworthy member of our sextet of stocks today. It is the only one of today's subjects that did not declare second-quarter results. It appears here because it fell more than seven percent this afternoon following a downgrade to "hold" from "buy." SANM produces components such as printed circuit boards and backplane assemblies for firms such as IBM (IBM) and Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), according to the Hoover's website.

And finally... Leggett & Platt (NYSE:LEG) was the biggest loser on the S&P 500 Index today after Felix E. Wright, Chairman and CEO, made this comment about the company's second-quarter earnings: "Sales and EPS were the highest we've ever attained for the second quarter of any year. Earnings were within our guidance, but sales were slightly below the range we originally forecasted. Net margin posted both sequential and year-over-year improvement." The stock has risen steadily since June 16, on support of the 10-day moving average, but today it gapped down, and neither the 10-day nor 20-day trendline proved robust enough to help. The stock bottomed at 26 shortly after 1:45 p.m. Eastern time today, and since then LEG has been climbing.