Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
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PAUL KANGAS: Yesterday's rally was alive and well on Wall Street today as stocks pushed higher right from the opening bell thanks to a surge in high tech issues triggered by better than expected results from Yahoo!, Sun Microsystems and Corning. Around noon, the Dow posted a 50 point gain. The NASDAQ was up 27. A surge in commodity-related stocks including oil and a continuing rally in the tech sector helped the blue chips move to record highs by the final bell. The Dow Industrial Average closed up 87.97 at a record 12,621.77. The NASDAQ Composite vaulted 34.87 points to 2466.28 while the Standard & Poor's 500 Index rose 12.14 ending at 1440.13. Over in the bond market, the 10-year note fell 1/32 to 98 17/32, putting the yield at 4.81 percent.
Most active New York exchange issue, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) trading 24.8 million shares, the stock tumbling $1.48. Yesterday the company reported a fourth quarter loss of $1.08 per share versus earnings of $0.21 the year earlier and today the Credit Suisse brokerage downgraded the stock from "neutral" to "under perform."
But then the star of the day, Corning (GLW) up $2.06. Corning in with fourth quarter earnings excluding one-time items, $0.31, $0.03 above the Street estimate. That was on a 14 percent rise in revenues and the company says it may initiate a cash dividend or buy back stock.
Ford Motor Co (F) in their with a dime loss.
But AT&T (T) did well, up $1.51. The company's new Cingular division reported that its profits more than tripled in the fourth quarter and some analysts believe that it's stealing market share from Sprint Nextel.
Pfizer (PFE) in their with a $0.45 gain, fifth in big board volume.
Nokia (NOK) $0.26 rise.
EMC Corp (EMC) $0.41 gain there.
Bank of America (BAC) down $0.12.
Motorola (MOT) a $0.04 gainer.
And then Sprint Nextel (S) itself up $0.39, tenth in big board volume.
General Dynamics (GD) fell $1.04. Fourth quarter earnings excluding one-time items $1.13, up from $0.98 last year, but that was a penny below the Street estimate. No room for disappointment apparently there.
Rockwell Automation (ROK) down $2.50. Its first quarter earnings excluding one-time items $0.96, $0.07 above the Street estimate, but I think what hurt the stock is the company says it sees slowing sales growth in Asia.
Seagate Technology (STX) did well, up $2.17. Its second quarter earnings excluding one-time items $0.39, down from $0.57 a year ago, but still that was $0.07 above the Street estimate, a nice rise in the stock.
Norfolk Southern (NSC), the major rail, down $3.12. Higher fourth quarter earnings $0.97, $0.95, versus $0.87 last year, but that was penny below the Wall Street estimate.
Amerisourcebergen (ABC) up $3.89. First quarter earnings jumped to $0.63 from $0.46 a year ago, $0.07 better than the Street consensus and the company also boosted 2007 earnings estimates.
Hershey Co (HSY) down $1.59. Lower fourth quarter earnings, $0.64 versus last year's $0.69. That was $0.06 below the Wall Street consensus.
TNS Inc (TNS), the company involved in the communications data services business, down $2.80 after rejecting a $16 a share buyout bid from a group led by the company's former CEO.
Air Products & Chemicals (APD) up $2.68, good first quarter earnings. They were up 27 percent at $1.03 versus $0.80 last year and that was $0.10 better than the Street estimate.
Albemarle (ALB), the specialty chemicals company, up $4.77. First quarter earnings jumped to $1.29 from only $0.67 last year.
And Continental Airlines (CAL) down $1.67. JPMorgan downgraded it from "overweight" to "underweight" on a valuation basis.
Google (GOOG) topped the NASDAQ actives up over $20 in that strong high tech group.
Apple (AAPL) a $1 gainer.
Yahoo! (YHOO) up $1.98, better than expected results out yesterday as we mentioned.
Microsoft (MSFT) $0.35 gain.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) up $0.85. That was fifth in dollar volume.
And then Ebay (EBAY) closed up $1.38. Fourth quarter earnings excluding items, $0.31 versus $0.20 a year ago, $0.03 better than the Street expected and in after hours trading, the stock was up around $34 a share.
Intel (INTC) $0.29 gain.
Sun Micro (SUNW) $0.49 gain there, turnaround. Sun Micro had second quarter earnings of $0.03 versus a loss of $0.07 last year.
Applied Materials (AMAT) $0.14 gain.
Research in Motion (RIMM) up nearly $1.
And finally, after the close Qualcomm (QCOM) posted better than expected fourth quarter earnings of $0.43 per share, a penny above analyst estimates.
