Paul Kangas' Stocks In The News
Thursday, August 31, 2006
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PAUL KANGAS: American consumers opened up their wallets in a big way last month as parents and kids went on a back-to-school spending spree. The Commerce Department said today that personal spending rose .8 of a percent in July. That`s double June`s pace and the strongest showing since January. But that spending outpaced personal income, which rose a half a percent. And speaking of spending, the nation`s leading retailers reported their August sales figures today. The big winners were teen-oriented retailers, including Abercrombie and Fitch and American Eagle Outfitters. But J.C. Penney, Ann Taylor and Chico`s all posted disappointing results as older consumers turned cautious in their spending. Analysts say that`s one reason competition for back-to-school dollars was fierce this year.
BRIAN TUNICK, SPECIALTY RETAIL ANALYST, JP MORGAN: The discounters and department stores are actually starting now to compete again. We have a whole host of foreign retailers, like H&M and Zara that are causing price deflation in the market, so there`s a lot more choices out there. There`s over 10,000 stores right now catering to teens.
KANGAS: Those personal income and spending numbers and that rise in retail sales, helped stocks open with small gains. The Dow rose 10 points early on and the NASDAQ gained three points. By noon, the Dow fell to a 12 point loss and NASDAQ was off three points on profit-taking after three straight days of gains. Stocks closed slightly lower however on caution ahead of tomorrow`s August employment report. The Dow Industrial Average ended down 1.76 at 11,381.15. The NASDAQ Composite lost nearly 2 points, ending at 2,183.75. Standard & Poor`s 500 Index fell .45 ending at 1,303.82. Over in the bond market, the 10-year note rose 6/32 to 101 5/32, putting the yield down to 4.73 percent.
Most active big board issue on 13.1 million shares, Lucent Tech (LU) losing $0.05. A French advisory firm called Proxy Invest is urging Alcatel shareholders to vote against the takeover of Lucent.
Pfizer (PFE) down $0.17.
Followed by Time Warner (TWX) which gained $0.04.
There you see Ford Motor Co (F) rising $0.10 a share.
ExxonMobil (XOM) down $0.63, fifth in big board volume.
Gap (GPS) was off $0.41. The company`s August same store sales were down 7 percent. The Street thought they`d be down only about 3 percent.
General Electric (GE) a $0.21 loss.
Goldcorp (GG) tumbling $2.81. It`s agreed to acquire Glamis Gold for $8.6 billion in its stock, 1.69 shares of Goldcorp for each share of Glamis. That`s worth about $46.75 a day (sic) for Glamis shares and they were up $7.26, closing at $46.12, one of the best percentage gainers on the big board.
Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) a $0.56 gain.
And Sprint Nextel (S), tenth in volume, was up $0.08 a share.
There you see Lockheed Martin (LMT) closing up only $0.34, but after the close as we heard, they got that big NASA contract and the stock jumped $1.55 from the price you see here. Northrop incidentally fell $0.57 in after hours trading.
Nordstrom (JWN) down or up $2.07. August same store sales rose 7.1 percent. The street estimate was for a rise of only about 3 1/2 percent.
Tiffany & Co (TIF) losing $1.40. Second quarter earnings lower, $0.29, versus $0.35 a year ago, $0.03 below the Wall Street consensus. Another retailer, Guess? (GES) off $2.20. August same store sales were up 4 percent, but the Street was looking for an 8 percent rise.
Family Dollar Stores (FDO) up $1.35. August same store sales rose 4 percent. That was about .2 of a percent better than the Street was estimating.
Big loser of the day, Advo (AD), this is the direct mail advertiser, tumbling $8.21, traded as low as $25.97. Valassis Communications has sued the company to rescind its $37 a share cash buyout bid for Advo, alleging the company misrepresented its financial health and didn`t reveal internal control deficiencies. Meanwhile, Valassis stock lost $1.29 to $19.72.
There you see World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) up for the count as we mentioned, up $1.75. The company in with first quarter earnings of $0.16, same as last year, but $0.06 better than the Wall Street consensus, nice move in the stock.
NCI Building (NCS) up $5.04, big earnings third quarter, $1, up from $0.70 a year ago and sales soared 54 percent.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) topped NASDAQ`s active list, up $0.32.
And then Apple Computer (AAPL) an $0.89 gain.
Google (GOOG) was down $2.22.
Intel (INTC) a $0.27 loss there.
Ebay (EBAY) fifth in dollar volume, lost $0.63 a share.
Sandisk (SNDK) up nearly $1.
And then Joy Global (JOYG), a big move, $7.71 in the plus column. The mining equipment maker had third quarter earnings of $1.53, up from only $0.25 a year ago.
Microsoft (MSFT) a $0.10 loss.
Dell (DELL) down $0.20.
And Oracle (ORCL) was down $0.10, tenth in volume.
Joseph A. Banks Clothiers (JOS) off $4.56. August same store sales at Joseph Bank were down a disappointing 6.1 percent. And then over on the American exchange, BNP Residential Properties (BNP), a REIT which owns apartment buildings, got an acquisition bid from Babcock and Brown at $24 a share cash.
Those are the stocks in the news tonight.
