Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Thursday, February 22, 2007
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PAUL KANGAS: Stocks opened modestly higher with the help of good earnings from Analog Devices. But after the Dow rose 17 points and the NASDAQ rose 12 points at the outset of trading, a large computer sell program sent the market broadly lower. At noon the Dow was off 61 points and the NASDAQ down three. Except for a firm tech sector, stocks remained on the defensive for thee rest of the day due to rising tensions with Iran and higher oil prices. The Dow Industrial Average closed down 52.39 at 12,686.02. The NASDAQ Composite however gained 6.51 to 2524.94. Standard & Poor's 500 Index fell 1 1/4 to 1456.38. In the bond market, the 10-year note fell 10/32 to 99 5/32, putting the yield at 4.73 percent.
Big board volume leader General Electric (GE) on 17.1 million shares down $0.23. It was trading ex dividend $0.28 a share incidentally. That's yielding about 3.1 percent annually now.
Texas Instruments (TXN) a good move, up $1.11. The semiconductor stocks nicely higher in sympathy with Analog Devices which reported good earnings and a very positive outlook.
Pfizer (PFE) $0.20. drop.
Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) down $0.32, dropped over $2 yesterday on concern about slowing earnings growth.
Advanced Micro (AMD) lost a penny. That was fifth in volume.
Then Ford Motor Co (F) losing $0.12.
Followed by Qwest Comm (Q) with a $0.16 gain.
Halliburton Co (HAL) up $1.24.
ExxonMobil (XOM) rose $0.30.
AT&T (T), tenth in volume, down $0.16.
There you see Analog Devices (ADI) with a nice gain of $3.48 after reporting first quarter earnings $0.44, up from $0.39 last year on an $0.11 rise in revenues and today, Citigroup upgraded the stock from hold to buy.
All of this had a positive impact in other semiconductor stocks like National Semiconductor (NSM) up $1.74 and in addition, Morgan Stanley upgraded National Semiconductor from equal weight to over weight.
Newmont Mining (NEM), the granddaddy gold stock, up $0.73. Big fourth quarter earnings out, $0.48 up from only $0.16 last year and that was $0.08 above the Wall Street estimate.
JC Penney Co (JCP) a drag on the retailing group today, the stock down nearly $3 a share. Fourth quarter earnings were higher, $2 versus $1.92 last year, but the company sees just low single digit sales growth in the first quarter and most of the year.
Tronox (TRX), specialty chemical company up $1.68. Fourth quarter earnings $0.19 a share, $0.09 better than the Street was expecting.
General Maritime (GMR) up $3.57, even though fourth quarter earnings plunged 79 percent on a 56 percent drop in revenues, but the company also declared a one-time special cash dividend of $15 a share and that certainly helped to keep the stock afloat today.
Landamerica Financial Group (LFG) up $4.97. Fourth quarter earnings $1.95, way down from $2.40 a year ago, but $0.19 better than the Street was expecting. The company also is going to buy back 1.5 million shares of its own stock.
Ritchie Brothers Auctioneer (RBA) down $3.57. Fourth quarter earnings, $0.28, down from $0.41 last year and all hurt by higher expenses said the company.
Google (GOOG) topped the active list with a penny loss.
Followed by Apple (AAPL) $0.31 gain there.
And Whole Foods Market (WFMI) up $6.41. A positive reaction to the company's plan to acquire rival Wild Oats market for $18.50 a share. Wild Oats stock today was up $2.69 to $18.41 a share.
Microsoft (MSFT) $0.04 gain. The company's ordered to pay $1.5 billion in damages to Alcatel Lucent for patent violations covering MP3 technology developed by German researcher Fraunhofer Institute and Bell Labs, Bell being a unit of Lucent Technologies.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) $0.02 gain. You heard the story on the iPhone.
And then Intel (INTC) $0.09 rise.
Research in Motion (RIMM) fell $1.68.
Amgen (AMGN) down $0.67.
Qualcomm (QCOM) was up $0.74 and it received a little upgrade I believe.
Sandisk (SNDK) was down $0.90 however and WR Hambrecht downgraded it from buy to just a hold.
Hardinge (HDNG) $4.08 gain. It's a tool manufacturer and it had fourth quarter earnings of $0.71 a share, way up from $0.21 last year. Sales were up 19 percent in that period.
Those are the stocks in the new tonight.
