Paul Kangas' Stocks In The News
Thursday, May 04, 2006
|
|
|
|
PAUL KANGAS: Stocks moved broadly higher this morning on those good retail sales and that drop in oil prices. At noon the Dow was sporting a 52-point gain. NASDAQ was up 19 points. Some mild profit taking in the blue chips trimmed their gains this afternoon, but the NASDAQ market held its own amid solid buying in some of the tech stocks. Dow Industrial Average closed up 38 1/2 points at 11,438.86. That`s a fresh six-year high incidentally. The NASDAQ Composite gained 19.93 to 2323.90. Standard & Poor`s 500 Index rose 4.40 to 1312.25. Over in the bond market, the 10-year note fell 2/32 to 95 even, putting the yield at 5.16 percent.
Big board volume leader, a familiar name, Pfizer (PFE) traded 19 1/2 million shares moved up a nickel.
Then Liberty Media (L) up $0.13, no specific news, very active though. The company is in the process of completing a major restructuring. I think that`s leading to some of the activity in the stock.
SprintNextel (S) was up $0.11.
Time Warner (TWX) dropped $0.09 today. Of course yesterday was off $0.20 when it reported first quarter earnings, $0.20 per share and that was just in line with estimates, down another $0.09 today.
Nortel Networks (NT) rose $0.06. That was fifth in big board volume.
ExxonMobil (XOM) on the lower oil prices, dropping $0.46.
Chico`s Fas (CHS), the women`s clothing retailer tumbling $7.10. Its April same store sales were up 5.4 percent, but even the company said it was disappointed with that and Wall Street was looking for a gain of 7.7 percent, so a disappointment all the way around.
General Electric (GE) $0.40 gain.
Tyco Intl (TYC) was up $0.98. Second quarter earnings, $0.47, a nickel ahead of the Wall Street estimate, way up from $0.10 a year ago, but the company did cut its 2006 earnings estimate from a high of $1.92 to a high of $1.85, but it`s also planning to buy back up to $2 billion worth of stock.
Citigroup (C) was tenth in volume and dropped $0.47.
Eastman Kodak (EK) a $0.59 drop, traded as low as $24.99 today. Eastman Kodak reported a sixth consecutive quarterly loss which included a lot of heavy restructuring costs as it tried to go to digital photography. A first quarter loss reported today of $1.04, more than twice as much as a $0.51 loss last year. The company did retain Goldman Sachs to explore the possible sales of its health group unit.
Archer-Daniels Midland (ADM), which has been riding high on good earnings recently, down $3.32 today. Prudential Securities downgraded it from "over weight" to just a "neutral" rating.
Then McDermott Intl (MDR) up $4.90. First quarter earnings $0.72, $0.40 more than last year and $0.22 above the Street estimate. The company`s three for two split stock incidentally start trading May 17th.
Then Startek (SRT) down $5.91. This is a management services firm. First quarter earnings came in at $0.14, $0.08 below the Street estimate, way down from $0.23 last year and it cut its quarterly dividend from $0.36 down to $0.25 a share.
NASDAQ`s most active, Microsoft (MSFT) with a $0.27 gain.
Followed by Apple Computer (AAPL) which dropped a penny.
Google (GOOG) $0.58 rise there.
Electronic Arts (ERTS) tumbling $5.95. After the close yesterday, the company reported a fourth quarter loss of $0.05 per share, versus earnings of $0.02 the year before. Today, Standard & Poor`s downgraded the stock from "strong buy" to just a "hold."
Cisco Systems (CSCO) was up $0.37 a share. That was fifth in dollar volume.
Qualcomm (QCOM) rose $0.59.
Intel (INTC) an $0.18 rise there.
Ebay (EBAY) down $0.06.
And then a big gain for Whole Foods Market (WFMI) up $8.27 today. Second quarter earnings came in at $0.36, up from $0.30 last year. Same store sales were up 12 percent. The earnings a penny above the Street estimate and the company boosted its 2006 same store sales guidance from plus 8 to 10 percent, all the way up to 10 to 12 percent.
And then Starbucks (SBUX) up $1.44. Second quarter earnings, $0.16, $0.02 above the Street consensus and up from $0.12 last year. Same store sales rose 10 percent.
Expeditors (EXPD), the global logistics firm, first quarter earnings $0.47, $0.08 better than the Street estimate. Two for one stock split announced and it`s boosting its annual dividend from $0.15 to $0.22 a share.
And those are the stocks in the news tonight.
