Paul Kangas' Stocks In The News
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
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PAUL KANGAS: Wall Street's blue chips opened just a few points lower on profit taking after setting a record high yesterday, so that minor correction encouraged some renewed buying. By noon, the Dow was sporting a 56-point advance and NASDAQ was up 24 points. As the broader market joined the rally, short sellers frantically covered their positions, helping send stocks soaring. The Dow Industrial Average jumped 123.27 points to a new record high of 11,850.61. The NASDAQ Composite vaulted 47.30 points to 2290.95 and the Standard & Poor's 500 was up 16.11 ending at 1350.22. In the bond market, the 10-year note rose 12/32 to 102 14/32, putting the yield all the way down to 4.57 percent.
Big board volume leader on 20.8 million shares, Ford Motor Co (F) up $0.33 now that the GM-Renault-Nissan talks are over. It suggests maybe Ford-Nissan-Renault combination as a possibility.
Texas Instrument (TXN) down $0.09.
ExxonMobil (XOM) up $1.20, one of the best gainers in the Dow. Let's have a look at four of the next best gainers.
Altria Group (MO) doing nicely.
Boeing (BA) up $2.18.
And nice gains in IBM (IBM) and Procter & Gamble (PG) as well, all resulting in that 123-point closing gain.
In the Dow, Pfizer (PFE) down $0.08.
Time Warner (TWX) a $0.23 gain. That was fifth in big board volume.
Then General Electric (GE) moving up $0.39.
Followed by Valero Energy (VLO) making a comeback of $1.93.
Wal-Mart Stores (WMT), there you see it, up $0.09 despite that downward revision in September same store sales.
Lucent Tech (LU) gained a nickel.
While Nortel Networks (NT) lost that much and was tenth in volume.
Baker Hughes (BHI), the oil service company, up $1.90. JPMorgan upgraded it from "neutral" to "over weight."
And then moving right along we`ll go OM Group (OMG) which manufacturers metal-based chemicals. The company sees third quarter earnings at around $2.90 a share. That`s way up from the previous estimate of $1.55. The company says that`s thanks to a rise in base metal prices, especially the price of nickel.
The Shaw Group (SGR), an engineering firm up $2.67. It`s going to join with Toshiba in acquiring a 20 percent stake in Westinghouse Electric, positive reaction to that.
Armor Holdings (AH), which makes military vehicle armor among other things, cut its third quarter earnings guidance at $0.75 to $0.80 all the way down to $0.55 to $0.65 and the stock today traded as low as $52.66, got hit rather hard.
WP Stewart & Co (WPL), this is a firm that's involved in asset management. It's based in Bermuda and it cut its quarterly dividend from $0.30 down to $0.23 a share.
L-1 Identity Solutions (ID) up $1.21. The Raymond James financial brokerage upgraded it from "out perform" to a "strong buy."
And Toyota Motors (TM) up $2.60 after Bank America upgraded it from "neutral" to a "buy" rating.
The volume leader on NASDAQ, Google (GOOG) with a nice gain of $11.66.
Microsoft (MSFT) up $0.57.
Apple Computer (AAPL) closed up $1.30. But Steve Jobs apologized to Apple shareholders late today after the computer maker said an internal investigation showed Jobs knew about 15 instances of stock options backdating, but he did not personally benefit from the practice. Apple stock in after hours trading dropped about $0.50 from this price.
Intel (INTC) was a $0.25 gainer.
And then Research in Motion (RIMM) really popped up with a gain of $6.73.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) gained $0.52.
EBay (EBAY) $1.72 rise.
Sandisk (SNDK) up $3.07. The company plans to expand its operations in India. Also it got the regulatory go ahead for its acquisition of M Systems.
Amgen (AMGN) up $1.64.
And Oracle (ORCL) was up $0.27 a share.
Imclone Systems (IMCL) gained $2.16. The company's accusing Carl Icahn of sabotaging a takeover of the company by a major drug maker at the price of $36 a share.
And Nvidia (NVDA) did well, up $2.78 on takeover speculation. Some say the suitor is Intel.
And then Hallmark Financial (HAF) fell $1.65 on news of the company's planned offering of three million shares at $9 each.
