Paul Kangas' Stocks In The News
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
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PAUL KANGAS: Wall Street opened narrowly mixed today, but a rebound in oil stocks improved the market`s general tone, as did better than expected earnings from Lehman Brothers. By the noon hour, the Dow posted a 33 point gain and the NASDAQ Composite was up nine points. With continuing gains in the tech stocks and the bond market, stocks improved for the rest of the day. So the Dow Industrial Average closed up 45.23 points at 11,543.32. The NASDAQ Composite was up 11.85 ending at 2,227.67. Standard & Poor`s 500 Index gained nearly five points to 1,318.07. Over in the bond market, the 10-year note rose 2/32 to par and 28/32, putting the yield at 4.76 percent.
Most active big board issue on 23.7 million shares, Ford Motor Co (F) moving up $0.13. As you heard, there`s a rumor the company will cut 6,000 more jobs than originally planned. Tomorrow, there will be the official announcement to see if that`s true or not.
Then came Nortel Networks (NT) with a penny gain.
Sprint Nextel (S) up $0.19.
Walgreen WAS) down $1.69. I saw no specific news other than a block of 7 1/2 million shares of Walgreen traded at $49.75 a share.
Boston Scientific (BSX) fell $0.56. That was fifth in big board volume.
ExxonMobil (XOM) rebounding $0.66 on the higher oil prices.
Home Depot (HD) $0.51 gain.
Motorola (MOT) down $0.33.
General Electric (GE) moved up $0.17.
Tenth in volume, EMC Corp (EMC) with a $0.26 loss. Merck & Co (MRK) fell $1.09. A new study identified kidney-related risks from using Vioxx, the painkiller the company makes and it also suggested heart risks begin soon after starting to take Vioxx, not just after long-term use as the company claims. Some bad news for the company today.
Lehman Brothers Holdings (LEH) up $2.04. Third quarter earnings came in at $1.57, $0.08 better than the Street consensus and up from $1.47 a year ago.
Federated Dept Stores (FD) up $1.13. You see Merrill Lynch repeated a "buy" and also the analysts generally are giving the company good marks on the conversion of a number of department store chains it bought into one, namely Macy`s.
Windrose Medical Properties (WRS) up $1.90. Health care real estate investment trust will acquire this company for stock, .45 shares of health care REIT and that works out to a value of about $17.50 per Windrose share as of today.
Pall Corp (PLL) which makes filters of all kinds, up $3.18. Fourth quarter earnings, $0.50, $0.04 above the Street estimate, well above the $0.34 it earned a year ago. Sales were up 14 percent. Standard & Poor`s upgraded it from "sell" to a "hold."
Global Payments (GPN) up $2.61. UBS financial brokerage upgraded it from "neutral" to "buy."
On the downside, big percentage loser, International Coal Group (ICO) dropping $0.75 or 13 1/2 percent after the company cut its 2006 revenue guidance from $1 billion down to $900 million and it sees a loss for the year of $0.07 to $0.10 a share.
And NBTY Inc (NTY), used to be called Nature`s Bounty, down $2.81. Standard & Poor`s notes that the company`s preliminary August sales are disappointing. RBC Capital downgraded it from "out perform" to "sector perform" on valuation.
Google (GOOG) topped the active list, up $14.67. The company announced a marketing pact with Intuit.
Apple Computer (AAPL) up $1.57.
Intel (INTC) $0.08 gain.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) no change there. Microsoft (MSFT) gained a nickel, fifth in dollar volume.
Oracle (ORCL) a $0.09 gain.
Sandisk (SNDK) fell $0.17.
Qualcomm (QCOM) $0.35 drop.
Sun Micro (SUNW) a $0.03 gain.
And Ebay (EBAY) down $0.45 a share.
Energy Conversion Devices (ENER) up $4.21. The company had a smaller than expected fourth quarter loss of $0.02 a share. The Street was looking for a loss of $0.14.
And RF Industries (RFIL) surged $3 on third quarter earnings of $0.11 per share versus only a nickel a year ago on a 20 percent jump in sales.
