Paul Kangas' Stocks In The News
Thursday, November 30, 2006
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PAUL KANGAS: Those soggy retail sales put a damper on stocks this morning, as did a lower dollar and higher oil prices. At noon, the Dow was off 55 points while the NASDAQ posted a six-point loss. The market turned choppy this afternoon on end-of-month window dressing activities. The major indices traded briefly in positive ground, but then ended narrowly mixed. The Dow Industrial Average lost 4.80 at 12,221.93. The NASDAQ Composite was off .46 ending at 2,431.77. Standard & Poor's 500 Index gained 1.17 to 1,400.65. In the bond market, the 10-year note rose 16/32 to 101 10/32, putting the yield all the way down to 4.46 percent.
Once again, big board volume leader today on 42.6 million shares, Lucent Tech (LU) down $0.02. Alcatel completed its merger with Lucent today, so tomorrow, the new company will trade as Alcatel Lucent and the trading symbol will be ALU. Then came General Motors (GM) very active and down $0.27. Now GM's biggest shareholder may soon own no GM shares. Billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian's Tracinda Corporation told the "Wall Street Journal" late today that it plans to divest its entire stake in GM. That works out to about 28 million shares or almost a 5 percent stake in the company. Tracinda has already sold 28 million GM shares this week and there was a late day sale of 28 million shares, which are believed to be Tracinda's.
Then came Pfizer (PFE) up $0.42. The company boosted its 2006 earnings estimate by a nickel to $2.05 a share.
Nortel Networks (NT) no change there.
Qwest Comm (Q) down $0.14, fifth in volume.
ExxonMobil (XOM) up $0.78.
Time Warner (TWX) dropped $0.19.
EMC Corp (EMC) a $0.23 gain.
AT&T (T) moved up $0.41.
And then Alcatel (ALA) a $0.03 gain, tenth in volume.
Standard Pacific (SPF) up $2.40. Now first of all, Bank of America upgraded the home building group from "under weight" to "neutral" and specifically this company, Standard Pacific got an upgrade from "sell" to a "buy" and there were upgrades on four other home builders and the upgrades were all the same from Bank of America from "sell" to "neutral."
Meritage Homes (MTH), NVR (NVR), Pulte Homes (PHM) and Ryland Group (RYL) all very nice gains.
JCPenney Co (JCP) one of the weak retailers, off $2.26. November same store sales were only 1.4 percent ahead of last year. The Street was expecting a 4 percent rise.
Then came Christopher & Banks (CBH), the women's apparel retailer, down $1.54. November same store sales there dropped 8 percent. The Street was looking for a drop of only 1.6 percent.
DSW (DSW) did very well, the footwear retailer came in with third quarter earnings of $0.36. That's $0.09 above the Street estimate and well above the $0.25 last year.
Then we see Cardinal Health (CAH) moving up $2.79. The company will divest its ailing pharmaceutical technology unit and Deutsche Bank securities upgraded the stock from "hold" to a "buy."
And then Gerber Scientific (GRB) moving up $0.13, traded as high as $14.99, had a second quarter turnaround, earnings of $0.16 versus a penny loss last year.
Most active NASDAQ, Apple Computer (AAPL) down $0.14.
Followed by Google (GOOG) with a $0.16 gain.
Research in Motion (RIMM) up $4.68. Starting tomorrow, Cingular Wireless will start selling RIMM's company's Blackberry pearl device.
Microsoft (MSFT) $0.21 drop.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) fell $0.17, fifth in dollar volume.
Intel (INTC) $0.16 gain.
IAC/interactive (IACI) was up $0.47. It will replace Lucent in the Standard & Poor's as of tonight.
Amgen (AMGN) down $1.38.
A $0.06 loss in Qualcomm (QCOM).
Tenth in volume, Broadcom (BRCM) fell a nickel.
Digital Insight (DGIN) up $5.15. Intuit will acquire this company for $39 a share in cash.
And over on the American exchange, Xenonics Holdings (XNN) involved in high intensity lighting, expects to report a significant rise in fourth quarter revenues and profits in mid-December.
Those are the stocks in the news tonight.
