Paul Kangas' Stocks In The News
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
|
|
|
|
PAUL KANGAS: Stocks headed lower this morning on that surge in oil and news that sales of existing homes in September fell 1.9 percent when a rise had been expected. Losses in General Motors and Boeing stocks contributed to a 40-point loss in the Dow at noon, while strength in amazon.com helped the NASDAQ post an eight point gain. The market turned very choppy after the Fed's 2:15 p.m. announcement, but buyers gradually gained the upper hand. So the Dow Industrial Average gained 6.80 points to another record high at 12,134.68. The NASDAQ Composite was up exactly 11.75 to 2356.59. Standard & Poor's 500 Index advanced 4.84 ending at 1382.22. In the bond market, the 10-year note rose 15/32 to par and 27/32, putting the yield down to 4.77 percent.
Big board volume leader on 29.4 million shares, Corning (GLW) down $2. After the close yesterday, third quarter earnings excluding items came in at $0.28. That was $0.03 above the Street estimate, but revenues fell short of expectations and the company forecast fourth quarter earnings dropping to $0.27 a share. Even though that was in line with Street estimates, it sees weakness in its fiber optic business.
Ford Motor Co (F) moved up $0.19.
Then Altria Group (MO) rising $2.28. Third quarter earnings excluding items, $1.38, up from $1 - let's make it $1.39, up from last year's $1.38. That was $0.02 below the Street estimate, but it did boost its 2006 earnings guidance from the range of $5.40 to $5.50 (INAUDIBLE) as high as $5.53 a share. Also the board put off details of the Kraft spin off until January 31st.
Sprint Nextel (S) up $0.65.
Halliburton Co (HAL), which had good earnings out earlier in the week, up $1.80.
ExxonMobil (XOM) on the day's higher oil prices, rose $1.12.
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) $0.51 gain.
Pfizer (PFE) up $0.17.
Texas instruments (TXN) rebounding $0.21.
And Lucent Technologies (LU) was up a penny, tenth in big board volume.
Boeing Co (BA) down $2.73. Third quarter earnings fell to $0.89 from $1.26 last year, but that was $0.26 better than the Street estimate, but the company sees higher research costs hurting 2007 results. That drop in Boeing stock hurt the Dow by some 22 points today.
Yankee Candle (YCC) glowing with a $5.01 gain. First quarter or third quarter earnings came out at $0.37, up from last year's $0.35, but the Madison Dearborn Partners LLP is going to acquire this company for $34.75 a share in cash, nice move in the stock.
Norfolk Southern (NSC), the major rail, up $4.93. Third quarter earnings $1.02, way up from $.73 last year and revenues were up a respectable 11 percent.
Manitowoc Co (MTW) did well, up $6.12. Third quarter earnings jumped to $0.82 from only $0.38 last year. Revenues were up 38 percent. Those earnings, $0.10 better than the Street consensus. Standard & Poor's repeated a "buy," has a $60 a share target for the stock.
Crane Co (CR) down $3.93. Third quarter earnings were higher, $0.74 versus last year's $0.66, but the company sees fourth quarter earnings dropping to $0.58 to $0.64, well below third quarter levels.
Radioshack (RSH) off $1.45. Third quarter loss of $0.12 versus earnings off $0.75 last year. Same store sales dropped 9.6 percent.
Then we see the big oil, Conocophillips (COP) up $1.35. Third quarter earnings jumped to $2.68, $0.31 better than the Street was expecting.
NASDAQ's most active, Google (GOOG) up $13.29 at a new closing high.
Amazon.com (AMZN) on yesterday's better than expected earnings, up $4.05.
$0.63 gain in Apple Computer (AAPL).
Microsoft (MSFT) edged $0.03 higher.
Intel (INTC) gained a dime. That was fifth in dollar volume.
Research in Motion (RIMM) $0.42 loss.
Yahoo! (YHOO) up $0.96.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) a nickel loss.
Nutrisystem (NTRI) down $4.03, even though it had higher third quarter earnings, $0.63 versus last year's $0.19.
Sandisk (SNDK) up $1.26.
And finally, shares in Lifecell (LIFC) plunged over $8 on lower than expected third quarter profits of $0.15 per share versus $0.07 a year ago. But the real problem was that its lead product Alloderm had disappointing sales.
