Liste Newsletter

Index Performances
EPITEX, EPITA’S INDEX, Nov. 29, 2004: 80.84 (EPITEX set at 100 on Aug. 31, 2001)

News

MARKET FOCUS

U.S. stocks ended mixed on Monday, as market participants focused on solid holiday spending that traditionally starts with the extended Thanksgiving weekend. Giant retailer Wal-Mart disappointed with lackluster early data for the period.

Chipmaker giant Intel extended its retreat ahead of its mid-quarter update, due out on Tuesday.

IBM, Sony and Toshiba will soon producing a new computer chip for use in video game systems, HDTV and home entertainment products. Apple was among the gainers on positive broker comments.

OUTLOOK

On Tuesday, the Chicago PMI regional manufacturing index is seen slipping to 63.3 in November from 68.5 in October. The big report comes out on Wednesday, with the ISM national manufacturing index for November seen at 56.8 and unchanged from December.

Then, the market will brace for the November employment report on Friday, when forecasters anticipate the addition of about 200,000 jobs following a gain of 337,000 in October, while the jobless rate should slip to 5.4 percent from 5.5 percent.

THE NUMBERS

The Dow Jones Industrial Average gave up 46 points, or 0.4 percent, to 10,475. The Nasdaq composite index added 4 points, or 0.2 percent, to 2,106 while the Nasdaq-100 index of large capitalization tech and biotech stocks ended up 0.1 percent at 1,580.

Profile

Light Reading, an independent market research firm specialized in telecom technology, said China has become the world’s top spot for Ethernet services, due to massive growth in residential broadband demand.

Light Reading conducted in October an exclusive survey of major carriers across China, providing insight into their current Ethernet service deployment strategies. With 30 million broadband households as of June 2004, China is now the world’s biggest broadband market by subscriber count, which nearly doubled in the first half of 2004.

China’s service providers are aggressively using Ethernet to target the residential market - a strategy that has yet to catch on in Western markets.

Although China’s carriers are offering the kinds of enterprise Ethernet services that are becoming popular elsewhere, they are making a strong commitment to delivering Ethernet to the residential market, including services that are typically associated with major cities in the most advanced Western economies.

FTTX is emerging as the primary broadband access technology in China’s urban markets.

The emphasis on fiber-based access is not surprising, given that China’s cities are dominated by large blocks of newer apartment buildings. Most Chinese cities also are well supplied with fiber in the core that can be extended out to these residential blocks.

Cisco Systems, Nortel Networks, Juniper Networks and IBM were among the technology suppliers named most often as partners by Chinese service providers. The report includes detailed data about China’s Ethernet service landscape that can be searched by carrier, region, or urban market. The report includes detailed maps showing current Ethernet service deployments by China's telecom carriers, as well as cross-carrier maps that plot out the levels of competition by region and city.