Paul Kangas' Stocks In The News
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
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PAUL KANGAS: Wall Street was in rebound mode at the opening bell. Bargain hunters moved in from the get-go, sending stocks higher after yesterday`s steep sell-off. Other buying was prompted by some pleasant surprises in today`s flurry of corporate earnings reports. At 1:00 p.m., the Dow posted a 75 point gain. The NASDAQ was up 14. Stocks gave back some of their gains this afternoon as oil prices jumped sharply and investors grew cautious ahead of tonight`s state of the union address. The Dow Industrial Average closed up 56.64 at 12,533.80. The NASDAQ Composite edged up 1/3 of a point to 2431.41. Standard & Poor`s 500 up 5.04 points ending at 1427.99. Over in the bond market, the 10-year note fell 12/32 to 98 18/32, putting the yield up at 4.81 percent. Big board volume leader on 35.4 million shares, Ford Motor Co (F) losing $0.11.
Followed by Pfizer (PFE) with a $0.58 loss. Bear Stearns downgraded Pfizer stock from "out perform" to "peer perform."
Texas Instruments (TXN) did well, up $1.01. After the close yesterday, TXN reported fourth quarter earnings rose 2 percent over last year and today, Merrill Lynch boosted its rating from "neutral" to "buy" in the belief that the semiconductor chip slump is bottoming out.
Alcatel-Lucent (ALU) down $1.04, big percentage drop there. The company warned that it will have a weak fourth quarter. Merrill Lynch downgraded the stock to "neutral" today. Standard & Poor`s repeated a "sell" recommendation.
AMR Corp (AMR) losing $3.39 on news it priced a 13 million share offering of new stock at $38.70. That represents some earnings dilution.
EMC Corp (EMC) edged up $0.08. The company out with fourth quarter earnings that tripled, $0.18 versus $0.06 last year.
Motorola (MOT) down $0.19.
ExxonMobil (XOM) up $1.59 on that spike late today in oil prices.
General Electric (GE) $0.20 loss.
And United Microelectronics (UMC) was up $0.37 and that was tenth in volume.
Dupont Co (DD) $0.43 loss despite fourth quarter earnings of $0.45 versus only $0.13 last year. That was just in line and it didn`t exclude one-time items.
Another Dow stock, Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) off $0.68. The company, excluding the charge for the acquisition of Pfizer`s consumer health care unit, fourth quarter earnings were $0.81, $0.02 above the Wall Street estimate.
The housing stocks did well, DR Horton (DHI) up $1.24. First quarter earnings plunged to only $0.35 from $0.98 last year, but that $0.02 above the Street estimate. And Goldman Sachs upgraded a lot of stocks in the home building group today. MDC Holdings (MDC), Ryland Group (RYL) and Toll Brothers (TOL) all had upgrades from Goldman Sachs.
Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNI), the big rail, up $2.97. Fourth quarter earnings up 21 percent over last year, $1.42 versus $1.13, $0.03 above the Wall Street consensus.
Temple Inland (TIN) was up $3.14. Billionaire Carl Icahn said he owns 6.7 percent of the stock and he wants the company to spin one or more businesses. They`re in forest products and packaging and things like that.
Jacobs Engineering (JEC) up $7.39. The construction services company had first quarter earnings of $1.01, well up $0.72 last year and $0.12 above the Wall Street estimate.
Energizer (ENR) up $8.20, showing some energy themselves. First quarter earnings jumped to $2.08 from $1.77 last year and sales were better than expected.
Startek (SRT), major loser of the day, down $3.28 after the company said fourth quarter earnings will only be $0.07 to $0.09 a share. The Wall Street estimate was way up there at $0.16.
Apple (AAPL) topped the active list, losing $1.09.
Followed by Google (GOOG) off $1.79.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) fell $0.49.
But Research in Motion (RIMM) did well, up $5.55.
Microsoft (MSFT) edged $0.02 higher. That was fifth in volume.
Intel (INTC) $0.24 loss.
Amgen (AMGN) down $1.25.
Yahoo! (YHOO) $0.46 loss, but after hours, it finally wound up around $28.47, as you heard, a real train ride there.
Applied Materials (AMAT) a $0.50 loss.
And then Qualcomm (QCOM), tenth in volume, off $0.38 a share. AeroVironment (AVAV), new issue today. This company makes unmanned intelligence gathering aircraft, 6.7 million shares offered at $17, opened at $25, the high of the day, $26.22, very nice debut.
Commercial Bankshares (CLBK) up $10.91. Colonial Bank Group will acquire this company for cash and stock worth $49.36 a share.
And Blair Corp (BL) over on the American Exchange, up $4.91. The apparel maker will be acquired by Topco Incorporated for $42.50 a share in cash.
Those are the stocks in the news tonight.
