Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Monday, February 26, 2007
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PAUL KANGAS: Wall Street opened moderately higher on that massive TXU acquisition, along with speculation that Advanced Micro Devices and Dow Chemical might also be takeover targets. After rising about 40 points at the outset, however, the Dow fell to a 36-point loss by 1:00 p.m., while the NASDAQ was off 22 points as that Greenspan recession talk threw cold water on the rally. An upturn in bond prices helped stocks stabilize this afternoon, but the market still ended lower across the board. The Dow Industrial Average closed off 15.22 at 12,632.26. NASDAQ Composite was down 10.58 ending at 2504.52, while the Standard & Poor's 500 Index fell 1.82 to 1449.37. Over in the bond market, the 10-year note rose 11/32 to 99 31/32, putting the yield at 4.63 percent.
Not surprisingly, the most active big board issue was TXU Corp (TXU) trading 23.5 million shares and up $7.91 on that $69.25 private equity buyout bid. But the sector was very strong.
Some other utilities are seen as takeover targets like Edison Intl (EIX), Exelon Corp (EXC) and NRG Energy (NRG), all nice gains on the day.
Moving down the active list, Advanced Micro (AMD) second in volume, up $0.99. There is speculation private equity groups might be interested in making a takeover offer for AMD as well.
Then came Dow Chemical Co (DOW) up $1.54. You know it. A British tabloid reported this company might get a leveraged buyout offer from private equity groups at around $60 a share. That would be $54 billion.
Citigroup (C) fell $1.09.
And then Qwest Comm (Q) up $0.21, fifth in big board volume.
Pfizer (PFE) up $0.22.
Followed by General Electric (GE) $0.24 gain.
AT&T (T) gained a half a dollar.
Time Warner (TWX) down $0.35.
And Merck & Co (MRK), tenth in volume, up $1.54. Citigroup upgraded Merck from "hold" to "buy" on the bullish outlook for the company's diabetes drug called Januvia.
In contrast however, rival to Merck, Novartis AG down $1.53. The FDA has asked Novartis for additional testing of its competing diabetes drug called Galvis and that could delay FDA approval by about a year.
Temple-Inland (TIN) up $7.06. It's going to spin off its financial services and real estate units and parts of its timberland holdings in order to concentrate on its packaging and building products businesses.
Station Casinos (STN) up $3.20. The company accepted a sweetened takeover bid from Fertita (ph) Colony Partners at $90 a share. That's $8 more than the original bid.
Then another takeover, Hub Intl ltd (HBG), this is an insurance brokerage, up $5.10. It's going to be acquired for $40 a share by Apax Partners and Morgan Stanley principal investment.
McGraw-Hill Cos (MHP) down $1.33. Credit Suisse brokerage downgraded it from "out perform" to "neutral" and cut its price target from $77 to $71 a share on concern about sub-prime lending.
And the same reason why Credit Suisse cut Moody's Corp (MOO) down $2.06 from "neutral" to "under perform" and cut its price target on Moody's from $75, $79, all the way down to $64 a share.
McDermott Intl (MDR) off $1.89. The company may lose a big chunk of business from that TXU takeover because of the scaling back of some of those coal-fired plants.
LSI Logic (LSI) moved up $0.34. Wedbush Morgan brokerage upgraded it from "hold" to "buy," boosted its price target from $10 to $13 a share.
Apple (AAPL) topped the active list, down $0.42. After the close, Apple said it's going to delay its Apple television device until mid-March.
Microsoft (MSFT) $0.17 gain.
Research in Motion (RIMM) up $6.77. RBC Capital upgraded it from "sector perform" to "out perform," boosted its price target from $145 to $180 a share.
Google (GOOG) down $5.69.
Intel (INTC) a $0.09 gain, fifth in dollar volume.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) a $0.27 loss.
Qualcomm (QCOM) down $0.71.
$0.02 gain for Yahoo! (YHOO).
Amgen (AMGN) up, down $0.03.
And Comcast "A" (CMCSA) down $0.66, tenth in volume.
Then we have Jakks Pacific (JAKK), this is a toy manufacturer. Fourth quarter earnings $0.73, way up from $0.30 last year. Revenues jumped 43 percent.
And over on the American exchange, look at that percentage gain, Refac Optical Group (REF). Palisade Capital notified the company it intends to take it private at $6 a share.
And those are the stocks in the news tonight.
