Paul Kangas' Stocks In The News
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
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PAUL KANGAS: Sellers took command on Wall Street this morning, not only because of that spike up in oil, but also due to a brokerage downgrade on General Motors and Wal-Mart reporting May sales at the low end of estimates. Not helping things either, the Conference Board reported a slide in consumer confidence in May. At mid-session, the Dow was off 126 points, NASDAQ down 32. The sell off turned into a rout this afternoon, as the dollar weakened and interest rates rose. So the Dow Industrial Average tumbled 184.18 points to 11,094.43. The NASDAQ Composite plunged 45.63 ending at 2164.74. The Standard & Poor`s 500 Index fell 20 1/3 points to 1259.84. Over in the bond market, the 10-year note fell 8/32 to par and 11/32, putting the yield at 5.08 percent.
New York exchange volume leader on 13 million shares, Pfizer (PFE) down $0.42.
Followed by GE (GE) with a $0.28 drop.
Then Wal-Mart Stores (WMT) hurting the Dow with that loss of $1.35. The company estimates its May same store sales rose only 2.3 percent, at the low end of its forecast. The company cited high energy prices keeping shoppers away.
SprintNextel (S) down $0.57.
Ford Motor (F) down $0.33, certainly not helped by the GM downgrade. That was fifth in volume.
Then Merck & co (MRK) fell $1.42.
Time Warner (TWX) $0.22 loss.
General Motors (GM) itself down $1.51. As you heard, Deutsche Bank downgraded it from "hold" to "sell" today.
ExxonMobil (XOM) off $1.41 despite the higher oil prices.
And then the big gainer of the day, Kinder Morgan (KMI), the pipeline company, up $15.90. An investment group led by Chairman and CEO Richard Kinder is proposing to take the firm private at $100 a share. Tribune (TRB) did well, up $2.01. The company plans to buy back up to 75 million of its own shares at 25 percent of the outstanding stock and Prudential equities today upgraded the stock from "neutral" to "over weight."
Navistar Intl (NAV), which was up $4.16 last Friday on reports a German firm might want to take a stake in the company`s stock, down $2.37 today after Bear Stearns downgraded it from "peer perform" to "under perform."
IDT Corp (IDT) up $1.14, bucking the trend. This week`s "Barron`s" financial notes that the company after it closes on the sale of its entertainment unit for $400 million to Liberty Media, I believe, it will have a cash position of $1 billion and the stock could reach $25 a share according to the article in "Barron`s."
BASF Aktien (BF) down $1.86. Englehard Corp. finally approved the company`s hostile takeover bid which is at $39 a share or $5 billion. Englehard edged up only $0.25. It was already close to that price of $39, closed at $38.93 today.
On the downside, Wyeth (WYE) the big drug company, off $1.55. First of all, the FDA warned the company of possible contamination in some of its headache remedies that were packaged in Puerto Rico. On top of that, Merrill Lynch downgraded it from "buy" to "neutral" on concern about Wyeth`s product pipeline.
Then we see Orient Express Hotels (OEH) moving up $1.54. That`s after Citigroup upgraded it from "hold" to "buy."
And other gainer, small one on the close up $0.47 but it traded as high as $23.57 this morning after the audio technology firm got an upgrade from "hold" to "buy" on a valuation basis from Matrix Investment Research. Dolby Labs (DLB)
NASDAQ`s most active, Google (GOOG) losing $9.41.
Apple Computer (AAPL) $2.33 loss there.
Microsoft (MSFT) fell $0.57.
Intel (INTC) $0.41 drop.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) off $0.54. That was fifth in dollar volume.
Dell (DELL) bucked the trend with a gain of $0.21. But Qualcomm (QCOM) down $1.31.
Ebay (EBAY) fell nearly $1.
Amgen (AMGN) off nearly $2.
And Yahoo! (YHOO) fell $1.02.
Sirius Satellite Radio (SIRI) moving up $0.21. First of all, the chief exec Mel Karmazin bought another million shares today. On top of that, Lehman upgraded it from "equal weight" to "over weight" after the company settled a CBS lawsuit over Howard Stern for a rather trivial $2 million.
Then ADE Corp (ADX), a semiconductor firm, up $6.23. KLA Tencor now says it`ll buy the company for $32.50 in cash instead of stock.
And then another good gainer today, Marsh Supermarkets (MARSA) rising $2.29. This company received an unsolicited buyout bid from an investment group for $13.62 1/2 per share in cash.
And those are the stocks in the news tonight.
