Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
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PAUL KANGAS: The strong report on February housing starts helped Wall Street overcome some early profit-taking and provided the foundation for a steady morning upturn in stocks. By mid-session, the Dow was up 53 points, NASDAQ had a 17-point gain. A midday earnings warning from Halliburton briefly cut the market`s gains this afternoon, but the rally got back on track and stocks ended near their best levels of the day. The Dow Industrial Average closed up 61.93 points at 12,288.10. The NASDAQ Composite rose 13.80 ending at 2,408.21. Standard & Poor`s 500 Index gained 8.88 at 1,410.94. Over in the bond market, the 10-year note
The most active big board issue, trading 35.8 million shares, Halliburton (HAL) down $1.90, traded as low as $29.71 after the company warned first quarter earnings will drop to $0.49 to $0.54. That`s well below the $0.59 Wall Street estimate. The company cites decreased drilling activity in North America.
Motorola (MOT) a $0.53 gain. $0.61 rise in Time Warner (TWX).
Ford Motor (F) edged up $0.06.
GE (GE) fifth in volume was up a dime a share.
Then we see ExxonMobil (XOM) rising $0.90.
Followed by Pfizer (PFE) with an $0.18 gain.
CVS Corp (CVS) $0.53 rise.
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) fell $0.31.
Tenth in volume, AT&T (T) up $0.33 a share. Citigroup (C) up $0.58. AG Edwards brokerage upgraded it from "hold" to a "buy." Then we look at Affiliated Computer (ACS) up $8.66. As you heard, an investment group led by the company`s founder, Darwin Deason, is making a $59.25 per share buyout bid for Affiliated. Systemax (SYX) down $5.15, even though fourth quarter earnings jumped to $0.22 from $0.09 last year. However, gross profit margins dropped to 12.9 percent from 14.7 percent a year ago. That may have hurt the stock, although the company did declare a special $1 per share cash dividend. Technical Olympic USA (TOA), this is a Florida home builder, down $1.66. Yesterday the company reported a fourth quarter loss of $4.09 per share versus earnings of $1.23 the previous year. Claire`s Stores (CLE) up $1.12. Apollo Management will acquire the company for $33 a share cash. That works out to about $3.1 billion. Gottschalks (GOT), this is the department store chain, up $1.45. CL King brokerage upgraded it from "accumulate" to a "strong buy." And then Alon USA Energy (ALJ), a refining company, up $2.55. Caris & Company brokerage upgraded it from "average" to "above average" after the company yesterday boosted its earnings estimate from its California refining operations. Valspar (VAL) up $1.65. Deutsche Bank upgraded it from "hold" to a "buy." And then Marcus Corp (MCS) which runs theaters and hotels, off $0.76, traded as low as $20.18. Third quarter earnings dropped to $0.13 from $0.15 a year ago and that`s despite nearly a 4 percent rise in revenues. NASDAQ`s most active, Apple (AAPL) $0.35 gain. Followed by Google (GOOG) down $1.95.
Microsoft (MSFT) edged a penny higher.
Intel (INTC) $0.12 loss.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) was up $0.04, fifth in volume.
Oracle (ORCL) a $0.37 gain. After the close, Oracle in with third quarter results, $0.25 a share, up from $0.19 last year. That`s excluding items and that was $0.03 above the Street estimate. In after hours trading, the stock was up $1 from this level until it leveled off a bit.
Research in Motion (RIMM) down $1.57.
Qualcomm (QCOM) $0.13 gain.
Sandisk (SNDK) up $1.92. CIBC World Markets upgraded Sandisk from "sector perform" to "sector outperform."
And then Amgen (AMGN), tenth in volume, was up $0.29.
And finally, Accredited Home Lenders (LEND) up $1.82 or 20 percent. This sub-prime lender got its own sub-prime loan, five years, $200 million at 13 percent. The cash infusion came from a California hedge fund.
