Paul Kangas' Stocks In The News
Thursday, June 22, 2006
|
|
|
|
PAUL KANGAS Wall Street opened lower on profit-taking from yesterday`s sharp rally. Rising oil prices also prompted some of the selling. A drop in the May leading economic indicators was yet another negative. After an hour of trading, the Dow was off 50 points. The NASDAQ down 18. An uptick in interest rates today and fear of another rise at next week`s Fed policy meeting kept stocks on the defensive for the rest of the day. So the Dow Industrial Average closed off 60.35 points at 11,019.11. The NASDAQ Composite fell 18.22 ending at 2,122.98. Standard & Poor`s 500 index down 6.60 at 1,245.60. Over in the bond market, the 10-year note fell 13/32 to 99 11/32, lifting the yield all the way up to 5.21 percent.
Big board volume leader on 18.4 million shares, Sprint Nextel (S) losing $0.54. The Baird brokerage downgraded the stock from "out perform" to "neutral" on concerns over subscriber growth prospects.
Then Boston Scientific (BSX) down $0.50 a share, traded as low as $18.06. The "Wall Street Journal" today reports some cardiac centers are cutting back on the use of drug-coated stents due to rising concern over blood clots. Johnson & Johnson, the other dominant company in the stent field and its stock was down $0.61.
General Electric (GE) fell $0.18.
Pfizer (PFE) $0.04 drop there.
Fifth in volume was EMC Corp (EMC) which dropped $0.20.
$0.13 loss in Time Warner (TWX).
Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) fell $0.77.
Ford Motor Co (F) held steady. That was a triumph (ph) on the active list.
ExxonMobil (XOM) $0.09 drop.
And Univision Comm (UVN) was down $1.04. You heard the story earlier.
British Airways (BAB) down $4.09. The Department of Justice and its British counterpart are probing alleged cartel activity involving this company and other majors in regard to price fixing on air fares and cargo, etcetera. Then General Mills (GIS) edged up $0.90. Merrill Lynch upgraded it from "neutral" to "buy" on a valuation basis, thinks the stock is reasonable, excuse me.
Mastercard (MA) had a nice move of $1.30 gain. Morgan Stanley started covering it with an "over weight" rating and a $56 a share target price. You`ll recall that the stock went public on May 25th at a price of $39 so it`s moved up nicely.
Green Mountain Power (GNP) big move, up $5.76. Northern New England Energy will acquire the company for $35 a share in cash.
Gerber Scientific (GRB) rose $0.91, almost 9 percent move. Fourth quarter earnings came in at $0.17 a share, $0.06 above the Street estimate and the company is looking forward to a strong 2007 performance.
AG Edwards (AGE) the major brokerage jumped $1.16. First quarter earnings jumped to $1.01 versus only $0.67 a year ago and revenues were up a handsome 17 percent.
Google (GOOG) topped the active list, down $2.18. The company did sell its 2 percent stake in baidu.com and baidu stock tumbled $4.20 to $80.20 on the news.
Apple Computer (AAPL) was up $1.72.
Then Microsoft (MSFT) a $0.20 loss.
Teva Pharmaceuticals (TEVA) dropping $1.02.
And Qualcomm (QCOM) fell $2.82. Nokia is not going to produce CDMA- based handsets with Sanyo and of course Qualcomm sells that CDMA technology, so not going to get any business that they had planned.
Intel (INTC) down $0.15.
$0.38 drop in Cisco Systems (CSCO).
Oracle (ORCL) off $0.20.
Bed Bath & Beyond (BBBY) down $2.21, $0.35 first quarter earnings. That was in line, but the estimate, full year $2.17 is below the Street estimate.
And then Dell (DELL) down $0.21 a share, tenth in volume. And Oracle, we wanted to get Oracle in. $0.20 a share gain after the close, fourth quarter earnings, $0.29, a penny better than estimates. The stock moved up $0.09 to $0.10 a share after hours.
And those are the stocks in the news tonight.
