Paul Kangas' Stocks In The News
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
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PAUL KANGAS: Stocks overcame minor early weakness with the help of continuing merger activity and some good corporate earnings reports. At noon, the Dow hit a record intra-day high with a 24-point gain, while the NASDAQ Composite was up 10 points. But those rising oil prices dragged the market down this afternoon. So the Dow Industrial Average closed off 7.45 at 12,463.87. The NASDAQ Composite fell 1.94 to 2427.61. Standard & Poor's 500 Index lost 2.02 ending at 1423.53. In the bond market, the 10-year note fell 2/32 to par and 6/32, putting the yield at 4.60 percent.
Familiar name at the top of the active board and that's Ford Motor Co (F) rising $0.15 on nearly 31 million shares. Yesterday, as we reported, Morgan Stanley upgraded it from "equal weight" to "over weight" on the company's newly found ample liquidity. Then came Pfizer (PFE) with a penny gain.
General Electric (GE) a $0.14 rise there.
And then EMC Corp (EMC) a $0.16 gain.
Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) with that $0.91 gain closed at a new 52-week high, fifth in volume there.
AT&T (T) down $0.04.
ExxonMobil (XOM) despite the higher oil prices was down $0.91.
Time Warner (TWX) a $0.04 gainer.
Citigroup (C) was up $0.07. On Monday, Merrill Lynch upgraded it from "neutral" to "buy" as you might recall.
Texas Instruments (TXN), tenth in volume was up $0.23.
Carmax (KMX) had a good day, up $4.14. The used car company, sales company, third quarter earnings jumped to $0.42 versus only $0.22 a year ago. The Street estimate was for only $0.25, so much better than expected.
Systemax (SYX) up $2.36. Third quarter earnings tripled to $0.33 versus only $0.11 last year and sales were up 18 percent, very respectable there.
John H. Harland (JH), this is a check printing company, up $5.84. M&F Worldwide is going to acquire John Harland for $52.75 a share and the stock of M&F Worldwide gained $2.19 to $20.49 on that news.
Lindsay Corp (LNN), which makes irrigation equipment among other things up $1.82, nearly a quadrupling in first quarter earnings from last year, $0.15 versus only $0.04 then and revenues soared 30 percent.
Then Sally Beauty Holdings (SBH), this is a spin off from Alberto Culver. The beauty supply company expects the loss of its exclusive rights to distribute L'Oreal pro products will hurt their revenues by $110 million in the last nine months of its fiscal year 2007.
Greenbriar Co (GBX), which makes railroad cars, down $5.61. The company sees lower than expected first quarter operating earnings of only $0.10 to $0.13 a share.
And then Park Electrochem (PKE) dropping $3.94. Third quarter earnings down a bit from last year, $0.47 versus $0.48 then and that's despite a 19 percent rise in revenues.
Then we look at Volt Info Sciences (VOL) up $2.72. The company announced a three for two stock split.
Google (GOOG) topped the NASDAQ active list down $5.373.
And then a big gainer, Redback Networks (RBAK) up $4.49. The LM Ericsson company (ph), big Swedish firm, will acquire Redback for $25 a share in cash.
Apple Computer (AAPL) down $1.55.
Research in Motion (RIMM) popping up $2.51.
Microsoft (MSFT) gained $0.10. That was fifth in dollar volume.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) a $0.24 loss.
No change in Oracle (ORCL).
Intel (INTC) a $0.06 loss.
And then Yahoo! (YHOO) $0.82 in the red.
And EBay (EBAY), tenth in volume, down $0.47.
Digitas (DTAS) a direct mailing company, up $2.42. Publicis (ph), a French advertising firm going to acquire Digitas for $13.50 a share in cash.
And finally, Siga Technologies (SIGA) rose $2.23 after the FDA assigned orphan drug status to the company's small ox vaccine which gives it seven years of marketing exclusivity.
