Paul Kangas' Stocks In The News
Friday, March 24, 2006
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PAUL KANGAS: After a narrowly mixed opening, Wall Street`s blue chips rallied on news of a sharp drop in new home sales which we`ll detail shortly. That decline in sales eased concerns about higher interest rates. An 8 percent jump in Google stock boosted the tech sector. So the Dow was up 40 points by late morning and the NASDAQ rose 15. But then a further rise in oil prices and pre-weekend selling wiped out much of the stock gains this afternoon.
The Dow Industrial Average closed up only 9 2/3 points at 11,279.97. The Dow rose twice and fell three times this week gaining .32 overall. The NASDAQ Composite advanced 12 2/3 points to 2312.82 today. It fell twice and rose three times this week, gaining 6.34 points overall. The Standard & Poor`s 500 was up 1.28 to close at 1302.95 today. In the bond market, the 10-year note rose 17/32 to 98 21/32,
putting the yield down to 4.67 percent.
The most active big board issue for the fourth consecutive session Lucent Tech (LU) today on 13.4 million shares. The stock jumped 8 1/2 percent. As you heard, it confirmed it`s in merger talks with Alcatel whose stock incidentally rose $0.25 to $15.70.
Then Nortel Networks (NT) with a $0.12 gain.
And finally, there`s Tim Hortons (THI) up $5.01 from the offering price of just over $23. Wendy`s sold a 15 percent stake, still owns 85 percent and Wendy`s incidentally fell $2.08 to $62.93. Horton`s stock traded as high as $32.50 today incidentally.
Time Warner (TWX) a $0.09 loss.
Pfizer (PFE) down $0.13. That was fifth in volume.
Then we see AT&T (T) rising $0.37.
Followed by ExxonMobil (XOM) with an $0.08 drop.
General Electric (GE) down $0.17.
Ford Motor Co (F) a $0.02 gain.
And Motorola (MOT) tenth in volume, was up $0.30 a share.
Anglogold Ashanti (AU) doing well, up $2.47. New York April gold contract up $9.70 to $560.50 an ounce. Incidentally, Anglo will take a 2 percent stake in Colombia`s largest gold mining company.
Harley-Davidson (HDI) up $1.88. The company plans to open its first dealership in China next month.
Synnex (SNX), this is an info technology firm, up $1.27 on higher first quarter earnings of $0.34, up from last year`s $0.26 and a penny above the Street consensus. Revenues up a respectable 15 percent.
Administaff (ASF) down $1.92. Merrill Lynch today downgraded it from "buy" to just a "neutral" rating.
And Biovail (BVF) off $2.13. Yesterday, it did have sharply higher earnings, but today Merrill Lynch downgraded it from "buy" down to a "neutral" rating there.
Sea Containers Ltd (SCR.A), the big loser of the day, losing 38 percent of its value from yesterday. The company is getting completely out of the ferry business. It will take a $500 charge to do that and it`s in talks to amend certain loan agreements which apparently are close to being violated.
Rex Stores (RSC) off $1.09. Fourth quarter earnings dropped 61 percent from last year to $0.57 versus $1.30, but there was a big tax benefit last year that boosted those earnings.
First Commonwealth Financial (FCF) up $1.19. This stock will be added to the Standard & Poor`s 500, I should say 600 small cap index after the close next Friday.
Then a new issue, an Argentinean bank, Banco Marco Bansud S.A. (BMA). This stock came public 9.7 million American depositary shares offered at $20.35 and it closed right at the high of the day incidentally, up $3.
Google (GOOG) topped the active list with nearly a $24 gain. It traded as high as $370.09 on yesterday`s late news that it`ll join the Standard & Poor`s 500 index at the end of the month.
Apple Computer (AAPL) a $0.20 loss.
Microsoft (MSFT) up $0.16.
Cephalon (CEPH) down $9.51. An FDA advisory committee recommend against approving the company`s Sparlon (ph) drug to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
Then we see Intel (INTC) with a loss of $0.10, fifth in dollar volume.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) dropped a nickel.
Sandisk (SNDK) bucking the trend, up $1.94.
Broadcom (BRCM) $0.76 drop.
$0.06 loss in Yahoo! (YHOO).
And Qualcomm (QCOM) was down $0.23, tenth in dollar volume.
Clayton Holdings (CLAY) went public today. This is a financial services company, 7 1/2 million shares offered at $17, opened at $18.50, the high of the day $24.20, backed off a little from there.
And Camden National (CAC) over on the American Exchange up $3.61. This is a commercial banking holding company and it`s going to have a Dutch tender auction to buy up to 752,000 of its own shares. It`ll pay between $36.50 and $40.25 a share.
Those are the stocks in the news tonight.
