Paul Kangas' Stocks In The News
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
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PAUL KANGAS: The sellers were in charge on Wall Street this morning, as profit takers cashed in on two days of solid gains. The early downturn was cushioned by Morgan Stanley's big earnings jump and firmness in the tech sector on strong results from Oracle and Adobe. At noon, the Dow was down 16 points, NASDAQ up one point. But then the bulls stampeded after the Fed's mid-afternoon rate decision and statement implying the next change could be a rate cut. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rocketed to a closing gain of 159.42 points at 12,447.52. The NASDAQ Composite vaulted 47.71 ending at 2455.92. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index jumped 24.10 ending at 1435.04. In the bond market, the 10-year note climbed 4/32 to par and 21/32, putting the yield down to 4.54 percent.
Big board volume leader on 18.3 million shares, General Electric (GE) up $0.71.
Followed by Advanced Micro Devices (ADM) which gained $0.19. The Thomas Weisel brokerage believes AMD is going to cut its chip prices.
Then Motorola (MOT) with an $0.08 loss. The company had no comment on reports that it might make a buyout bid for Palm. But after the close, Motorola cut its first quarter earnings estimate to a loss of $0.07 to $0.09 versus the Street estimate of earnings of $0.17. The company did accelerate $2 billion in its stock buyback program. But in after hours trading, the stock was over $1 lower than what you see here.
CVS Corp (CVS) gained $1. The company expects to close its acquisition of Caremark next week.
AT&T (T), fifth in volume, was up $0.95.
Then we see Pfizer (PFE) gaining $0.31.
Halliburton (HAL) a $0.19 gain, snapping back from $1.90 loss yesterday when the company issued an earnings warning.
Time Warner (TWX) was down $0.04.
Ford Motor Co (F) a $0.13 gain.
And then Citigroup (C), tenth in volume, was up $1.39 on the strong financial sector.
Alcoa (AA) down $0.22, the only one of the Dow 30 stocks not to have a gain today, but there's a reason. Prudential downgraded Alcoa from "over weight" to "neutral" and cut its price target from $41 to $38 a share on concerns over tough competition from China.
Then a good, another loss, Fedex (FDX) off $1.30. Earnings came in at $1.35 versus $1.38 last year. The company cited the slowing U.S. economy.
Morgan Stanley (MS) had a great day, up $5.22. First quarter earnings up 70 percent over last year to $2.51 versus $1.48 a year ago. The Street was only looking for $1.88.
Then Fremont General (FMT) up $1.41, good percentage move. The company said it will book a $140 million loss on the sale of $4 billion of its sub- prime residential real estate portfolio, but it did get the first installment already of $950 million. The company did not name who the buyer was.
Tiffany & Co (TIF) up $1.90. Bank America boosted its price target from $45 to $52 a share, partially on news that Trion (ph) fund management purchased a 5.4 percent stake in Tiffany.
Clorox Co
(CLX) up $1.79. JPMorgan upgraded it from "neutral" to "over weight."
Then Automatic Data Processing (ADP) up $2.08. The company sees 2007 earnings per share growth up 20 to 23 percent.
Media General (MEG) down $1.09. The company sees a first quarter loss of $0.26 to $0.30 a share. The Street was looking for $0.20 in earnings.
Then AAR Corp (AIR) down $2.91. Third quarter operating earnings, $0.37 in line with estimates, but sales were disappointing and the stock well down.
Finally Officemax (OMX) up $2.36. Goldman Sachs issued a "buy" on the belief the company is a vibrant turnaround story.
Google (GOOG) topped NASDAQ's most active, up $11.27. Bear Stearns made upbeat comments on the company's youtube video site.
Apple (AAPL) $2.39 gain.
Microsoft (MSFT) edged up $0.68.
And then Oracle (ORCL) up $0.62 after out with good earnings yesterday.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) $0.45 rise there, fifth in volume.
Intel (INTC) $0.35 gain.
Qualcomm (QCOM) rose $0.69.
Research in Motion (RIMM) up $3.27.
Sandisk (SNDK) up another $1.57. It was up $1.92 yesterday on a CIBC upgrade to "outperform."
And Yahoo! (YHOO) up $0.96, tenth in volume.
Adobe Systems (ADBE) up $2.56. First quarter earnings out today, $0.24, up from last year's $0.17. That's a 37 percent gain.
Those are the stocks in the news tonight.
