Paul Kangas' Socks in the News
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
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PAUL KANGAS: Wall Street's blue chips headed up from the start, thanks to that Alcoa takeover speculation along with Merrill Lynch upgrading General Motors shares to "buy" and 3M announcing a massive stock buyback. An hour into trading, the Dow was up 82 points. But the NASDAQ got off to an odd start with an erroneous trade at 9:31 a.m., sending the index surging over 3,000 points. NASDAQ is investigating that glitch. Our chart omits that spike in trading. In any case, the material stocks continued to rally and were joined by the rail sector on a brokerage upgrade. So the market went on to close at the day's best level. Dow Jones Industrial Average ended up 102.30 points at 12,654.85. The NASDAQ Composite up exactly 9 1/2 at 2459.88. Standard & Poor's 500 Index gained 10.89 closing at 1444.26. Over in the bond market, the 10-year note fell 2/32 to 98 16/32, putting the yield at 4.82 percent.
The most active big board stock, Caremark (CMX) trading 20.5 million shares, up $1.97. CVS, the big drug store chain has sweetened its buyout offer by raising a special cash dividend from $2 to $6 a share, that in addition to 1.67 shares of the new company. That deal's worth about $53.88. But Express Scripts bid is worth even more, about $61.08.
Alcoa (AA), second in volume, up $2.10. You heard about all that takeover speculation.
Then Ford Motor Co (F) down $0.20. Merrill Lynch downgraded Ford from "neutral" to "sell" on valuation. The stock of course is up about 30 percent this December.
CVS Corp (CVS) itself lost $0.40 on that sweetened bid.
And then Pfizer (PFE) $0.17 gainer. That was fifth in volume.
General Electric (GE) a $0.13 gain.
Halliburton (HAL) moved up $0.92.
Motorola (MOT) a $0.20 rise.
General Motors (GM) up $0.88 and it traded quite a bit higher than that, $37.24 after Merrill Lynch upgraded it from "sell" to "buy" with a $50 a share price target on GM.
Time Warner (TWX) up $0.33. The company is swapping its Atlanta Braves baseball team for Liberty Media's one third stake in Time Warner, a little swap going on there.
3M Co (MMM) up $1.84. The company plans to buy back up to $7 billion in its own stock over the next two years.
Then the rails were strong, CSX Corp (CSX) up $1.43. Bear Stearns made some positive comments on the railroad sector in general and most of the stocks were higher.
Ceridian (CEN) up $2.65. The outsourcing firm had higher fourth quarter earnings, $0.35, up from $0.32 last year, $0.02 above the Street estimate and also reviewing alternatives, possibly the sale of the company.
Mastercard (MA) upgraded by JPMorgan from "neutral" to "overweight," stock up $2.61.
Then Brinker Intl (EAT), the restaurant chain, Prudential upgraded it from "neutral" to "over weight."
On the downside was Yum! Brands (YUM) losing $1.02. Fourth quarter earnings higher, $0.83 versus $0.77. That was $0.04 above the Street estimate, but US sales were flat and that disappointed some investors.
R&G Financial (RGF), a Puerto Rican based company, down $2.02, a 26 percent drop. The New York Stock Exchange will suspend trading in the stock February 22nd because the company failed to file its 2005 10K report by the April 3rd deadline.
And the engineering firm Shaw Group (SGR) losing $2.24. Ernst & Young said it's resigning as the company's independent accounting firm.
Volume leader Google (GOOG) on NASDAQ, up $0.81.
Followed by Apple (AAPL) an $0.18 loss.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) down $0.36.
Microsoft (MSFT) was up $0.17.
Intel (INTC) a $0.07 gain. That was fifth in dollar volume.
Then Teva Pharm (TEVA) rose $1.59. Fourth quarter earnings excluding items, $0.53 a share, $0.05 below the Street, but the stock still higher.
Then you heard the story on the NASDAQ Stock Market (NDAQ) down $4 today.
Research in Motion (RIMM) gained a penny.
Onyx Pharm (ONXX) up $1.87.
And finally, Illumina (ILMN) jumped $2.26 on news it priced a $350 million convertible note offering. It also plans to buy back up to $202 million in stock.
