Paul Kangas' Stocks In The News
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
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KANGAS: The key driver on Wall Street today was those remarks by Fed chief Bernanke. An hour into trading, the Dow had turned an early 20-point loss into a 30-point gain as investors liked what he had to say, initially. Still, his hints about interest rates and comments on the economy overall had stocks bouncing from negative to positive most of the day. Finally, a drop in the price of oil, which we`ll detail next, solidified an afternoon rally. So the Dow Industrial Average closed up 30 1/2 points at 11,058.97, above 11,000 again. NASDAQ rose 14 1/4 points to 2276.43. Standard & Poor`s 500 up 4 1/2 points at 1280.00 even. Over in the bond market, the 10-year note rose 3/32 to 99 6/32, putting the yield at 4.60 percent.
New York exchange volume leader on 22.6 million shares, Lucent Technologies (LU) edging $0.02 higher.
Time Warner (TWX) down $0.20.
And then Pfizer (PFE) with an $0.11 gain.
ExxonMobil (XOM) up $0.21 despite the drop in oil prices.
Verizon Communications (VZ) was a $0.63 gainer, fifth in volume.
Cendant (CD) down $0.35.
No change in General Electric (GE).
Hewlett-Packard (HWQ) closed down $0.82, but just after the close, Hewlett reported first quarter earnings of $0.48 per share, excluding one- time items. That is $0.04 above the Street and the company says it`s going to buy back an additional $4 billion worth of its own stock. In after hours trading, Hewlett stock was about $1 higher than the price you see here.
Spring Nextel (S) gained a dime.
And then Nokia (NOK), which was tenth in volume, was up $0.25.
Blackrock (BLK), there you see it, up $5.29. As you heard, Merrill Lynch taking nearly a 50 percent stake leaving PNC Financial with about a 34 percent stake. Merrill stock was up $0.14 today. PNC Financial rose $2.10 to close at $69.07 per share.
Then Credit Suisse (CSR) group, this is the parent company of CS First Boston, down $4.95. Its fourth quarter earnings were up 15 percent, but analysts are getting concerned about rising expenses at the company and Deutsche Bank Securities today downgraded CS First Boston from "buy" to "hold."
Then we see FTI Consulting (FCN) with a nice gain of $4.11. Fourth quarter earnings sharply higher, $0.46, up from $0.18 a year ago and revenues shot up 58 percent. Those earnings incidentally were $0.06 better than the Street was expecting.
Davita (DVA), which is in the home kidney dialysis business, up $3.88. Fourth quarter earnings $0.54, up from $0.51 a year ago and the company boosted its forecast for this year. On top of that, Standard & Poor`s boosted its price target on Davita by $3 up to $66 a share.
Then Meritrans (TUG) which owns tugs and oil barges and things like that, had higher fourth quarter earnings, almost double last year, $0.32 versus $0.17, but believe it or not, that was $0.16 below what the Street was expecting.
Choice Hotels International (CHH) down $2.85. Fourth quarter earnings, $0.32 up from $0.28 a year ago, but the company predicting first quarter earnings will fall to only $0.19 to $0.21 and then CIBC World Markets brokerage downgraded the stock from "sector perform" to "under perform."
Volume leader Amgen (AMGN) was up $1.04. The company said it sold $5 billion in convertible debt in two private placements.
Google (GOOG) down $0.94.
Apple Computer (APPL) up $1.58.
Microsoft (MSFT) $0.32 gainer.
Intel (INTC), fifth in dollar volume was down $0.02 today.
Cisco Ssytems (CSCO) up $0.24.
Sandisk (SNDK) $0.15 rise.
Broadcom (BCOM) gained $0.07.
Yahoo! (YHOO) $0.30 advance.
And Qualcom (QCOM), tenth in volume, was down $0.26.
Itron Incorporated (ITRI), this is a company that has water and gas meter solutions and fourth quarter earnings, $0.59, well above last year`s $0.40 and $0.11 better than the Street was expecting.
And then we see Blue Coat Systems (BCSI) tumbling $5.43. The company`s involved in Internet security software. It had higher third quarter earnings of $0.21 versus $0.12 a year ago, but that was $0.03 lower than the Street expected. No room for disappointment apparently.
Those are the stocks in the news tonight.
