Paul Kangas' Stocks In The News
Monday, October 23, 2006
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PAUL KANGAS: A nice gain in Wal-Mart stock helped overcome early weakness on Wall Street. Adding to bullish conviction were solid earnings from Wrigley, Hasbro and Xerox and another drop in oil prices. At noon, the Dow was sporting nearly a 100-point gain. NASDAQ up 16. That kind of strength triggered a flurry of short covering purchases, sending stocks even higher this afternoon. Dow Industrial Average closed up 114.54 points at a new record high of 12,116.91. The NASDAQ Composite rose 13.26 to 2355.56. Standard & Poor's 500 Index was up 8.42 ending at 1377.02. In the bond market, the 10-year note fell 10/32 to par and 10/32, putting the yield up at 4.83 percent. Big board volume leader on 27.1 million shares as you might expect, Wal-Mart (WMT) doing well, up $1.91, traded as high as $52.15, positive reaction to the company's plan to slow expansion.
AT&T (T) had better than expected earnings out today, up $0.27.
Pfizer (PFE) a nickel gain.
And then Ford Motor (F) down $0.11 on that massive third quarter loss of $3.08 a share.
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), fifth in volume, was up $0.12.
General Electric (GE) $0.06 gainer there.
Time Warner (TWX) down $0.08.
Halliburton (HAL) moved up $0.48. Third quarter earnings came in at $0.58, up from $0.47 last year, $0.04 above the Street estimate and the company has revived plans to take Kellogg Brown and Root public by the end of this year.
American Express (AXP) down $1.39. The company's net income fell 6 percent on the third quarter to $0.79 a share, versus $0.82 last year.
Lucent Tech (LU) dropped $0.01, tenth in volume. Wm Wrigley Jr (WWY), very nice gain today, up $6.40. Third quarter earnings very nicely higher, $0.53 versus last year's $0.46, sales up 11 percent and the company has hired William Perez as the president and CEO, replacing Bill Wrigley Jr. who will be the executive chairman. Standard & Poor's repeated a "strong buy" on Wrigley stock.
Then Xerox (XRX) edging up $0.47. Third quarter excluding all one-time items, $0.23 a share. That was a penny above the Street consensus.
Hasbro (HAS) did well, up $2.03. Third quarter earnings, $0.58, well above $0.47 last year and sales were up 5.2 percent, pretty respectable there.
Pre-Paid Legal Services (PPD) up $1.65, big jump in third quarter earnings, $0.93, versus $0.55 last year and revenues were up 3.4 percent.
Snap-On Inc (SNA), the old Snap-On Tools, up $2.61. Third quarter earnings $0.48, up from last year's $0.36. Sales up 8.2 percent.
Then the book seller, Barnes & Noble (BKS) up $1.92. There were positive comments in this week's "Barron's" financial magazine. The article noted that this company could be acquired by a private equity group at a price 50 percent above what you're looking at here.
And then Blyth (BTH) down $2.22. Avondale Securities downgraded it from "market perform" to "under perform."
And Forest Labs (FRX) fell $2.93. The FDA has denied approval for the company's new oral antibiotic.
Asbury Automotive Group (ABG) fell $1.01. Deutsche securities downgraded it from "buy" to "hold."
Big board (sic) volume leader, Google (GOOG) hit not only an intra-day new high, but closed at a new high with that gain of $21.11.
Apple (AAPL) moving up $1.51.
Microsoft (MSFT) a $0.02 gainer.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) dropped $0.12.
While Intel (INTC) gained that much and that was fifth in dollar volume. Sandisk (SNDK) fell $1.70. Friday that stock was down over $12.50 on lower third quarter earnings and tried to rally today after Matrix Research upgraded it from "sell" to "hold," but it faltered late in the day.
Research in Motion (RIMM) a $3.15 gainer there.
EBay (EBAY) moved up $1.25.
Amgen (AMGN) a $0.58 loss.
And tenth in volume on NASDAQ was Yahoo! (YHOO) with a $0.16 gain.
Connetics (CNCT) up $5.36, almost 46 percent advance on news that a private company, Stietel Laboratories will acquire Connetics for $17.50 a share. Connetics makes dermatology products incidentally.
And then Replidyne (RDYN), look at that loss, a 45 percent drop, off $4.65. As I mentioned, the FDA denied approval for Forest Laboratories oral antibiotic. This company was Forest Labs partner in that venture. This stock just went public last June 28th at $10. So it's well below that now and today, Merrill Lynch downgraded Replidyne from "buy" to just "neutral."
Those are the stocks in the news tonight.
