Paul Kangas' Stocks In The News
Friday, August 25, 2006
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PAUL KANGAS: The blue chips headed higher this morning on that rise in oil prices due to the tropical storm. But while that sent energy stocks higher, mortgage lending stocks headed lower on the softening housing industry. At noon, the Dow was down 31 points. NASDAQ was up 3 points. As trading volume slowed to a summer doldrums pace, the market closed on a mixed note. The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended down 20.41 at 11,284.05 today. This week it rose once and fell four times, had a net loss of 97.42 points. The NASDAQ Composite was up 3.18 to 2140.29 today. It fell twice and rose three times this week, losing 23.66 points overall. The Standard & Poor`s 500 Index dropped .97 ending at 1295.09 today. Over in the bond market, the 10-year note rose 6/32 to par and 23/32, putting the yield down to 4.79 percent. Big board volume leader Ford Motor Co (F), every day this week it`s topped the active list, today on 16 million shares, moving up $0.24. You heard the news earlier that Director Robert Rubin has resigned from the board.
Then ExxonMobil (XOM) down $0.29 despite the rise in oil prices.
Lucent Tech (LU) edged a penny higher.
Sprint Nextel (S) down $0.08.
Lowes Companies (LOW) coming back $0.38 after several days of weakness.
Bank of America (BAC) $0.38 drop.
Pfizer (PFE) fell a penny.
Corning (GLW) moving up $0.52.
Time Warner (TWX) a penny loss.
And the same story with General Electric (GE), which was tenth in big board volume.
Home Depot (HD) edging $0.07 higher. The board of directors has approved an additional $3.5 billion for stock buy backs. That brings the total in that program for $17.5 billion allocated for buy backs.
H&R Block (HRB) down $1.98. The company`s mortgage unit faces growing losses due to delinquencies. The company will take a $0.19 per share first quarter charge. UBS Financial brokerage downgraded the stock from "buy" to "neutral." It traded as low as $20.30 today and the news from H&R Block had a very negative impact on a lot of the other mortgage lenders like Countrywide Financial (CFC) losing $0.81.
And then more than $1 losses in Indymac Bancorp (NDE), New Century Financial (NEW) and Novastar Financial (NFI), all on the downside.
On the upside, Pogo Producing (PPP) up $1.17. Merrill Lynch upgraded a number of natural gas producers in the belief gas prices are headed higher. It upgraded Pogo from "neutral" to "buy" and a host of others in that group got the same upgrade from - it was an upgrade from JPMorgan I believe, no from Merrill Lynch, sorry about that. Eog Resources (EOG), Forest Oil (FST), Newfield Exploration (NFX) and XTO Energy (XTO) all nicely on the upside.
Elan Corp (ELN) a $0.76 gain. Cowan & Company brokerage notes the company had a promise - had the promising treatment for Alzheimer`s disease.
And then we see Education Realty Trust (EDR), this is a student housing real estate investment trust and it cut its 2006 estimated result from $0.97 to $1.02 a share, all the way down to $0.87 to $0.92 a share at best.
Apple Computer (AAPL) topped the active list on NASDAQ, moving up $0.94.
Intel (INTC) $0.34 gain.
Google (GOOG) down $0.47.
Microsoft (MSFT) an $0.11 rise.
Sandisk (SNDK) gained $1.60. The Caris (ph) brokerage upgraded Sandisk from "above average" to "buy."
Cisco Systems (CSCO) a $0.04 loss.
Research in Motion (RIMM) moved up $2.19.
Oracle (ORCL) a $0.03 gain.
Qualcomm (QCOM) moved up $0.11.
And Applied Materials (AMAT), tenth in dollar volume, edged $0.03 higher.
Corcept Therapeutics (CORT) down $1.96, huge percentage drop. Late stage trials for the company`s treatment of severe depression failed to meet clinical targets.
And then Hoku Scientific (HOKU) down $1.24. Piper Jaffray - I should say up $1.24. Piper Jaffray upgraded "market perform" to "out perform." This company makes fuel cell parts incidentally.
And then Ansoft (ANST) up $3.11. The software firm reported first quarter earnings of $0.09 versus only a nickel last year. That was a penny above the Street estimate.
Those are the stocks in the news tonight.
