Paul Kangas' Stocks In The News
Friday, October 13, 2006
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PAUL KANGAS: Stocks opened mixed with the blue chips heading lower on concerns they may have gotten over priced in the near term. The NASDAQ however gained ground as tech stocks played catch-up, so just before noon, the Dow was off 36 points, but the NASDAQ up four. After noon, investors ignored higher oil prices and interest rate worries, sending the blue chips to another new closing high. Dow Industrial Average ended up 12.81 at a record 11,960.51 today. This week it rose in four of the five days for a net gain of 110.30 points. The NASDAQ Composite was up 11.11, ending at 2357.29 today. It also advanced in four of the five sessions and gained 57.30 overall this week. Standard & Poor's 500 gained 2.79 to 1365.62 today. In the bond market, the 10-year note fell 6/32 to par and 18/32, putting the yield at 4.80 percent.
Most active big board issue on 39.4 million shares was a new issue. That's Saic (SAI), used to be called Science Application International. It's a defense contractor. Seventy five million shares offered at 15; opened at 17; the high of the day, $18.39, backed off just a little bit, but a very nice debut.
General Electric (GE) $0.24 loss. Its earnings third quarter, $0.49, up from $0.43 last year, but only in line with estimates. Revenues were up 12 percent and analysts were disappointed that its NBC Universal unit had disappointing results and so did its plastics business.
AT&T (T) showing no change. The FTC again delayed meeting about a decision on AT&T's takeover of Bellsouth and now it wants public comment.
We see Time Warner (TWX) slipped down there (ph), an $0.18 loss.
And then Bellsouth (BLS) itself dropped a dime per share. That was fifth in volume.
ExxonMobil (XOM) up $0.75.
Motorola (MOT) $0.62 gain.
Pfizer (PFE) down $0.06.
Citigroup (C) rose $0.20.
Home Depot (HD) lost $1. Carl Liebert III, executive vice president, has resigned and Prudential today began coverage of Home Depot with an "under weight" rating. Raymond James financial downgraded it from "strong buy" to "out perform."
Centex (CTX) in a very weak home building group today, off $3.03. Centex said second quarter home orders are down 28 percent from a year ago. Let's have some other stocks in the group.
Beazer Homes (BZH), KB Homes (KBH), Pulte Homes (PHM) and Toll Brothers (TOL) all on the downside on that Centex news.0
A big gainer Unumprovident (UNM), this is the insurance company. It's up on takeover speculation. Some say a Canadian firm is eyeing the company, traded as high as $22.58 today.
Jackson Hewitt Tax Services (JTX) up $2 a share. The company plans to buy back up to 200 million of its own stock, $200 million that is.
And then La-Z-Boy (LZB) down $1.14. The company cut its second quarterearnings guidance from the range of $0.11 to $0.15, all the way down to $0.01 to $0.04 and UBS financial cut its price target from $8 to $5 a share.
NASDAQ's most active, Microsoft (MSFT) $0.15 gain. The company confirmed it is on track to deliver its new Vista operating system to its big volume customers in November and for the rest of the world in January.
Apple Computer (AAPL) $0.24 loss.
Intel (INTC) $0.11 gain.
Google (GOOG) down $0.14.
Yahoo! (YHOO) a $0.30 gain, fifth in volume.
Then we see Research in Motion (RIMM) rising $2.81.
Qualcomm (QCOM) up $0.90.
$0.08 gain in Cisco Systems (CSCO).
Sandisk (SNDK) up $0.90.
And Oracle (ORCL) rose $0.08 a share.
Now we have a couple of new issues, Acme Packet (APKT), manufactures computer network gear, 11 1/2 million shares offered at $9.50, opened at $14, the high of the day, $16.20, backed off a little.
Ehealth Inc (EHTH) did well too, five million shares offered at $14 and closed up $8.90 at $22.90.
Finally, over on the American exchange, Contango Oil & Gas (MCF) up $2.42. The company announced a significant oil and gas discovery off the coast of Louisiana.
And those are the stocks in the news tonight.
