Paul Kangas' Stocks In The News
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
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PAUL KANGAS: Labor cost and productivity numbers led to a lower opening on Wall Street and a weak tech sector led the way down. At noon, the Dow was off 52 points, NASDAQ down 30 points. That beige book report news also did nothing to ease inflation concerns, keeping stocks on the defensive. So the market ended broadly lower. The Dow Industrial Average closed off 63.08 at 11,406.20. The NASDAQ Composite was off 37.86 or 1.7 percent, all the way down to 2167.84. Standard & Poor`s 500 down almost 13 points at 1300.26. In the bond market, the 10-year note fell 4/32 to par and 19/32, lifting the yield to 4.8 percent.
Most active big board issue on 21.6 million shares, Ford Motor (F) moving up $0.16. As we reported yesterday, Allen Malolie (ph) is coming over from Boeing to become the new CEO, replacing Bill Ford, who will remain chairman.
Lucent Tech (LU) an $0.08 drop.
ExxonMobil (XOM) off $1.30.
And Valero Energy (VLO), in a weak energy group, down $2.73. Citigroup downgraded Valero from "buy" to "hold" on weakening refining profit margins and also in the belief second half earnings may fall short of the Wall Street consensus.
Sprint Nextel (S), fifth in volume, was down $0.53 a share.
Pfizer (PFE) a $0.12 loss. Time Warner (TWX) dropped $0.04.
And then Corning (GLW) off $0.46. Corning lowered its third quarter revenue projections.
EMC Corp (EMC) was down $0.34.
And then tenth in volume was General Electric (GE) with a $0.02 drop.
Donaldson Companies (DCI), this is a major filtration systems manufacturer, up $5.28. Fourth quarter earnings jumped to $0.43 from only $0.29 last year. Sales were up almost 10 percent during that period.
Then we see Western Digital (WDC) with a loss of $1.37. That`s after Bear Stearns downgraded another hard disk drive maker, namely Komag. We`ll see that later, another weak hard drive stock was Seagate Technology which fell $1.81 a share. That whole group on the weak side today.
Wolverine Tube (WLV) off $1.35. The company is dropping all talks about business combination because none of the proposals that it`s received so far apparently were promising.
Haverty Furniture (HVT) did well, up $1.40, $1.42 there. The company reported August same store sales better than expected with a gain of 10 percent.
And Sunoco (SUN), another weak refining stock, off $3.98. Citigroup downgraded this one from "buy" to "hold" on weaker refining margins, just like Valero.
Finally a spin off today, Hanesbrands (HBI), first day of trading on the big board, up $1.31. The apparel maker is being spun off by Sara Lee (SLE) whose stock moved up $0.58. Credit Suisse started coverage on Hanesbrands with a "out perform" rating on a $25 a share target.
Alaska Air Group (ALK) fell $1.12. It`s August load factor fell from 81.6 percent down to 80.8 percent.
Apple Computer (AAPL) topped the active list on NASDAQ, down $1.45.
Followed by Intel (INTC), $0.68 drop. After the close yesterday as we reported, the company is cutting 10 percent of its workforce or 10.5, that`s 10,500 jobs.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) down $0.40. Company says 20 percent annual growth is in its Japanese operations. Google (GOOG) $4.22 loss there.
No change in Microsoft (MSFT). That was fifth in dollar volume.
Qualcomm (QCOM) off $1.15
Sandisk (SNDK) fell $3.35.
Oracle (ORCL) off $0.22.
And Ebay (EBAY) $0.47 loss.
Marvell Technology Group (MRVL) $0.66 drop there, tenth in dollar volume.
Hain Celestial Group (HAIN) up $2.15. The natural and organic food company reported a turnaround, fourth quarter earnings of $0.22 versus a loss of $0.07 last year.
And then we see Komag Inc (KOMG) down almost $5 a share after Bear Stearns downgraded it from "out perform" to "peer perform."
And then we see Carrier Access (CACS) down $3.34 or 36 percent after the broadband equipment maker slashed its third quarter estimated results from break even to a loss of up to $0.16 a share. First Albany brokerage downgraded the stock from "buy" to "neutral."
