Paul Kangas' Stocks In The News
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
|
|
|
|
PAUL KANGAS: Falling oil prices helped the Dow head higher today, surpassing its record intraday high by four points with an 84 point gain at 1:00 p.m. The NASDAQ was up 13 then. The surge attracted some profit taking this afternoon, but not enough to keep the Dow from closing at that new record high. It ended up 56.99 points at 11,727.34, eclipsing the old high by 4.36 points. The NASDAQ today was up 6.05 at 2243.65. Standard & Poor's 500 up 2.79, ending at 1334.11. In the bond market, the 10-year note fell 2/32 to 102 1/32, putting the yield at 4.62 percent.
Big board volume leader on 16.2 million shares, Quest Diagnostics (DGX) tumbling $10.90, traded as low as $49.65. As we touched on earlier, the company lost a major contract to provide laboratory services to United Health Group and that accounted for 7 percent of Quest`s annual revenue. Meanwhile, Laboratory Corporation of America got from United Health Care a 10-year exclusive lab services contract and Lab stock was up $1.36, closing at $66.57.
Then the energy complex down sharply today, including ExxonMobil (XOM) off $1.59. That hurt the Dow.
Time Warner (TWX) was up $0.20.
And then Halliburton (HAL), oil services company, down $1.29.
Lucent Tech (LU), fifth in volume, dropped $0.02 a share.
General Electric (GE) up $0.21.
Ford Motor Co (F) a dime gain there on those higher sales.
ConocoPhillips (COP) however, down $2.52.
Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) dropped $0.24.
Tenth in volume was Pfizer (PFE) with a $0.10 gain.
Boeing (BA) did well, up $1.81. Rival Airbus is having more production problems with its A3A super jumbo and that could set production back some 10 months.
Elsewhere we see Continental Air (CAL) doing well, up $1.24. September traffic at Continental was up 11 1/2 percent.
All the airlines did rather well, including Alaska Air Group (ALK) up $1.79. Its September traffic rose 5.9 percent. The airline sector in general firm because of the plunge in oil prices obviously.
But the golds were really weak, the grandpa of them all, Newmont Mining (NEM) off $2.32 as December contract New York gold off almost $22 an ounce at $581.50. Let's have a look at some of the other major gold stocks. They did not fare well today. Anglogold Ashanti (AU) off nearly $2.
Over $2 drop in Barrick Gold (ABX).
And big losses in Freeport-McMoran c&g (FCX), Goldcorp (GG) and Gold Fields Ltd (GFI), a rough group to be in.
Wesco Intl (WCC) however, up $4.85. That's a positive reaction to the company`s acquisition of Communication Supply Company for an undisclosed sum. But it says the acquisition will boost earnings this year by $0.04 a share and boost earnings next year by $0.35 to $0.40 a share.
Pepsi Bottling (PGB) down $2.46. Third quarter earnings came in slightly higher than last year, $0.86 versus $0.82, but Deutsche Bank today reportedly downgraded Pepsi stock from "buy" to "hold."
NASDAQ's most active, Google (GOOG) up $2.60.
Followed by Apple Computer (AAPL) $0.78 drop there.
Intel (INTC) was up $0.13.
Marvell Tech Group (MRVL) down $2.29. Marvell is cutting its 2004 revenue forecast due to softening sales of hard disk drives. Incidentally, I should go back to Intel and say European regulators reportedly said they believe they have evidence to pursue antitrust charges against Intel.
Microsoft (MSFT) was up a penny. That was fifth in dollar volume on NASDAQ.
Broadcom (BRCM) $0.94 drop.
Research in Motion (RIMM) did well, up $2.06.
Oracle (ORCL) a $0.24 gain.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) up $0.43.
Gildead Sciences (GILD) down $2.25, was off sharply yesterday on news it`s going to buy Myogen.
Skyworks Solutions (SWKS) up $1.79, a nice 35 percent gain there. It`s a positive reaction to the company`s exit from baseband operations where it was loosing money. Meanwhile, Credit Suisse brokerage upgraded it from "under perform" to "neutral" and has a $9.50 price target for the stock. And those are the stocks in the news tonight.
