Paul Kangas' Stocks In The News
Thursday, June 15, 2006
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PAUL KANGAS: Reassuring comments from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke ignited a powerful rally on Wall Street today. The Dow skyrocketed almost 200 points, closing once again over the 11000 level and the NASDAQ Composite surged 58 points. Bernanke, speaking before the Economic Club of Chicago, said that inflation may not be as big a concern as the Fed had feared. Sounding remarkably dovish, Bernanke admitted the inflation expectations have edged up in recent months, but he said they now appear to be on the way down.
BEN BERNANKE, CHAIRMAN, FEDERAL RESERVE: As yet, these expectation measures have remained within the ranges in which they fluctuated in recent years and inflation compensation implied by yields and government debt has fallen back somewhat in the past month.
KANGAS: And it was those words, fallen back somewhat in the past month that spurred the huge rally in stocks right around 2:00 p.m. Eastern time. The markets were already trading higher on growing confidence that yesterday`s solid rally was a technical bottom to the recent sharp selloff. Then Bernanke set things on fire and frantic short covering and expiring options and futures strategies added to the huge gains. The Dow Industrial Average closed up 198.27 at 11,015.19. The NASDAQ Composite soared 58.15 to 2144.15 while the Standard & Poor`s 500 Index jumped 26 points to 1256.16. Over in the bond market, the 10-year note fell 8/32 to par and 6/32, putting the yield at 5.10 percent.
Most active big board issue on 19.3 million shares, General Electric (GE) moving up $0.21.
Followed by Time Warner (TWX) with a $0.14 gain.
ExxonMobil (XOM) as oil prices firmed up, gained $1.32.
Lucent Tech (LU) a $0.12 rise.
Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) gained $1.74. Next week, the company and Microsoft will unveil new software for financial professionals.
EMC Corp (EMC) was a $0.12 gainer.
AT&T (T) moved up $0.56.
Nortel Networks (NT) an $0.08 rise.
Bank of America (BAC) up $1.27.
And Pfizer (PFE), tenth in volume, gained $0.41 a share.
Boeing Co (BA) up another $2.80, carry over strength from yesterday when Singapore Air ordered $4.5 billion in new Boeing aircraft, nice move in the last two days.
Caterpillar (CAT) did well, up $3.37. The company`s forecasting a 15 to 20 percent compound annual earnings growth rate all the way up to the year 2010. It also boosted its quarterly dividend by $0.05 to $0.30 a share.
Bear Stearns Cos (BSC) up $7.36. Second quarter earnings were up 81 percent over last year to $3.72 a share, up from $2.09 last year. That was about $0.60 above the Street estimate. Revenues were up a hefty 38 percent.
Airtran Holdings (AAI) gained $1.21. Raymond James financial brokerage upgraded it from "market perform" to "out perform" and meanwhile, Merrill Lynch said it expects the airline industry to have a profitable June quarter which would be the first quarter profitable in several years. The whole sector was helped by those comments.
AMR Corp (AMR) up $1.43.
Similar gain in Continental Air (CAL).
UAL Corp (UAUA) and US Airways Group (LCC) better than two point gainers. Omnicare (OCR) up $4.37. The U.S. Medicare agency has clarified pricing rules for prescription drugs at nursing homes and that`s going to benefit Omnicare considerably.
Black & Decker (BDK) up $3.32. Citigroup upgraded it from "hold" to a "buy" rating.
And then we see Circuit City Stores (CC) rising $1.79. UBS financial upgraded it from "neutral" to "buy" on the company`s upbeat outlook.
And then another good gainer was Cnooc Ltd ADR (CEO) jumping $6.35. Bear Stearns upgraded it from "peer perform" to "out perform." The company has an interest in a big natural gas discovery in the South China Sea.
Google (GOOG) topped the active list on NASDAQ, up $6.61.
And then Apple Computer (AAPL) up $1.77, even though Merrill Lynch sees a slowdown in iPod sales.
Microsoft (MSFT) up $0.19. It dropped a few cents after the close incidentally.
And then Intel (INTC) $0.39 gain.
Qualcomm (QCOM) up $1.64, fifth in dollar volume.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) $0.61 gainer there.
Dell (DELL) down $0.16.
$1.17 rise in Yahoo! (YHOO).
Ebay (EBAY) was up $0.08.
And Sandisk (SNDK) did well, up $2.95. UBS upgraded it from "neutral" to "buy," repeated a $70 a share price target for the stock.
A new issue, Houston Wire & Cable co (HWCC), 8 1/2 million shares offered at $13, opened at $16, high $16.25, then it backed down a little bit.
And then Intermagnetics General (IMGC) up $5.60. Philips NB (ph) will acquire it for $27.50 a share cash.
And those are the stocks in the news tonight.
