Paul Kangas' Stocks In The News
Wednesday, August 02, 2006
|
|
|
|
PAUL KANGAS: Buyers took the upper hand on Wall Street this morning, encouraged by strong earnings from Alcan Aluminum, Cigna and Procter & Gamble, which we`ll detail shortly. The tech sector was boosted by a positive outlook from Adobe Systems. So by noon, the Dow was sporting a 95-point gain, NASDAQ up 24. That upward spike in the price of oil put a lid on the rally this afternoon, but the market still ended broadly higher. The Dow Industrial Average closed up 74.20 points at 11,199.93. The NASDAQ Composite was up 16.82 at 2,078.81. Standard & Poor`s 500 rose 7.63 points, ending at 1,278.55. The Treasury announced today it will double the number of 30-year bond auctions to four next year. The first quarterly auction of 2007 will be in February. In the bond market today, the 10-year note rose 4/32 to 101 7/32, lowering the yield to 4.97 percent.
The most active New York exchange issue on 32.1 million shares, Pfizer (PFE) losing $0.48. A Federal court found a secondary patent on the company`s Lipitor cholesterol drug is invalid and that could open the way for generic versions of it appearing on the market much sooner than expected. In a separate situation, (INAUDIBLE) is suing Pfizer, claiming its Exubera diabetes drug infringes on (INAUDIBLE) patent. (INAUDIBLE) stock jumped $3.97 on that news.
Cendant (CD) down $0.19.
Qwest Communications (Q) up $0.35.
EMC Corp (EMC) a $0.04 loss.
And there you see Time Warner (TWX) up $0.42 on those big changes on AOL strategy you heard about.
Ford Motor Co (F) up $0.38.
Followed by ExxonMobil (XOM) with a $0.30 gain on that surge in oil.
Motorola (MOT) was up $0.72.
Lucent Tech (LU) a $0.02 gainer.
And Corning (GLW), tenth in volume, down $0.20 a share.
Cigna (CI), the big insurance company, $9.44 gainer. Second quarter earnings jumped to $2.31 from $1.98 last year, $0.37 above the Street consensus and the company`s boosting its 2006 earnings estimate in the range of $8.30 to $8.50 a share. Standard & Poor`s upgraded the stock from a "hold" to a "buy."
Then Alcan (AL), the big aluminum company, up $3.44. Second quarter earnings, $1.21, up from last year`s $0.52 and Alcan is boosting its quarterly dividend 33 percent. It`ll go from $0.15 to $0.20 a share.
Then a nice gain in Watts Water Technologies (WTS) up $5.16. Second quarter earnings $0.68, $0.17 better than the Street expected and up from $0.42 a year ago. The Needham brokerage upgraded it from a "hold" to a "buy."
Major loser, Esterline Technologies (ESL), which is in the aerospace parts business, down $8.15. The company sees third quarter earnings at $0.40 to $0.45 a share and the Street estimate was $0.63. On top of that, Keybanc brokerage downgraded the stock from "buy" to just a "hold."
And then Beckman Coulter (BEC) off $5. The company cut not only its third quarter sales projections, but its fourth quarter sales projections as well.
Consolidated Graphics (CGX) moving up $8.94. First quarter earnings, $0.97, well above $0.61 last year, 14 percent jump in revenue to go with that.
And it seemed that Moody`s (MCO) had a high rating by buyers today, up $6 a share. Second quarter earnings $0.59, up from $0.47 a year ago. Revenues there rose 14 percent.
Sotherby`s Holdings (BID), the auction house, up $1.24. Second quarter earnings $1.16 versus $0.66 last year. Revenues jumped a big 39 percent.
FMC Corp (FMC), the specialty chemical company, down $3.71. Second quarter earnings came in at $1.47. That was $0.05 below the Wall Street consensus.
And Mastercard (MA) did well, up $5.02. Second quarter earnings $0.74 a share, $0.12 better than the Street consensus although down from $0.89 a year ago.
Volume leader on NASDAQ, Google (GOOG) down $8.28.
Garmin Ltd (GRMN) off $1.86. Yesterday, it fell almost $5 after American Technology Research began covering it with a "sell." Today it was out with second quarter earnings of $1.12, $0.16 better than estimates. The stock got as high as $98.82 and then plunged in late trading.
Apple Computer (AAPL) a $0.98 gain.
Microsoft (MSFT) $0.31 rise there.
No change in Cisco Systems (CSCO) today, fifth in dollar volume.
Intel (INTC) $0.07 drop.
Checkfree (CKFR) fell $5.93. Fourth quarter earnings $0.39. That`s up from $0.13 last year, but $0.02 below the Street estimate and the company`s first quarter earnings guidance was disappointing to a lot of analysts.
Amgen (AMGN) $0.71 gain.
And then Ebay (EBAY) fell $0.66.
Tenth in big board volume or NASDAQ volume was Comcast (CMCSA) gaining $0.65.
Rambus (RMBS) down $4.33, big percentage, 25.5 percent. The Federal Trade Commission has alleged the company unlawfully monopolized four computer memory technologies for DRAM chips. So that was bad news for Rambus.
And those are the stocks in the news tonight.
