Paul Kangas' Stocks In The News
Monday, December 04, 2006
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PAUL KANGAS: Wall Street opened the week with a solid rally inspired by a flurry of mergers which we'll detail shortly and a drop in oil futures. At noon, the Dow posted a 65 point gain. NASDAQ was up 31 points. A recovery in the dollar and firm bond prices kept the upward momentum alive, lifting the Dow to a 115 point gain by 3:00 p.m. But then some profit taking trimmed the gains in the final hour. So the Dow Industrial Average closed up 89.72 at 12,283.85. The NASDAQ Composite was up 35.18 ending at 2448.39. Standard & Poor's 500 rose 12.41 to 1409.12. In the bond market, the 10-year note gained 3/32 to par and 18/32, putting the yield at 4.43 percent.
Far and away the most active big board issue, Pfizer (PFE) on 81 million shares, traded on the big board, almost 300 million in composite trading. The stock traded as low as $23.52 during the day and that loss of nearly $3 hurt the Dow Industrial Average by about 24 points. LSI Logic (LSI), second in volume, down $1.44. As you heard, some think that it might be paying too much for Agere.
Bank of America (BAC) an $0.85 loss. The CFO announced Friday he'll be leaving.
Bank of New York (BK) up $4.27 as you saw, a positive reaction to its merger with Mellon Financial.
And then Ford Motor Co (F), fifth in volume, was down $0.15.
Agere Systems (AGR) up $1.51. That's pretty close to that $19.70 deal that LSI Logic is offering, but it's all in stock.
ExxonMobil (XOM) $0.57 gain.
Time Warner (TWX) up $0.24.
Same story with AT&T (T).
And then tenth in volume, Merck (MRK) down $0.36 a share.
IBM (IBM) moved up $2.26. This week's "Barron's" financial has positive comments about big blue, including praise for the company's increased productivity, which should drive earnings in future years, according to the article.
Abbott Labs (ABT) up $1.53. Standard & Poor's says Abbott could benefit from Pfizer's ending its development of that experimental cholesterol drug.
Walgreen Co (WAG) moving up $2.07. November same store sales up a solid 9.3 percent and that's despite Wal-Mart's competitive $4 per prescription program.
Station Casinos (STN), there you see it, up $15.80 on the buyout bid at $82 a share, but the other casino stocks were on a roll today too.
Ameristar Casino (ASCA), Boyd Gaming (BYD), Isle Capris Casinos (ISLE), MGM Mirage (MGM) and Pinnacle Entertainment (PNK) all in the plus column, very nicely.
Nucor (NUE) up $4.75. The steel stock firm after the CFO of Mittal said that steel prices seemed to have bottomed out. Let's have a look at two more steel stocks.
Steel Dynamics (STLD) doing well, up $2.44.
And big steel itself, US Steel (X) up $3.49.
Taiwan Semiconductor (TSM) was up $0.46, a percentage move 4 1/3 percent. Bear Stearns upgraded it from "peer perform" to "out perform."
Topping NASDAQ active list was Google (GOOG) up $4.05.
Followed by Apple Computer (AAPL) $0.20 loss.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) moved up $0.56.
And Microsoft (MSFT) $0.21 gain.
Intel (INTC) fifth in volume, up $0.29. Bank of America suggests Intel could get a boost from falling dollar next year.
Then we see Research in Motion (RIMM) up $0.68.
Oracle (ORCL) $0.47 gain.
Amgen (AMGN) down $0.23.
Qualcomm (QCOM) moved up $1.15. It's going to acquire Airgo Networks and most of RF Microdevices Bluetooth assets.
Yahoo! (YHOO), tenth in volume, was up $0.40 a share.
baidu.com (BIDU) up $3.68. The Chinese Internet firm planning to expand into Japan next year.
And then Gold Kist (GKIS), the poultry producer, up $0.90. Pilgrim's Pride, another poultry producer will acquire it for $21 a share in cash. Pilgrim's Pride stock moved up $2.52 to $27.90.
And Onyx Pharmaceuticals (ONXX) down $5.32 on disappointment that late stage trials of the company's skin cancer treatment didn't quite turn out as they had hoped.
Those are the stocks in the news tonight.
