Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
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PAUL KANGAS: Rising gasoline prices and stock market turmoil are weighing on consumer attitudes. The Conference Board's index of consumer confidence dipped to a reading of 107.2 this month. That was its first decline in five months. The research group says apprehension about the short-term future has cast a cloud over consumer confidence and stock market volatility is combining with surging gas prices to making consumers even more uncertain about what's ahead. That drop in consumer confidence, in conjunction with Lennar's sharp earnings decline, had Wall Street on the defensive this morning amid fears the economy's slowdown was more severe than estimated. Just before noon, the Dow was off 75 points and the NASDAQ down 20. The blue chips fell as much as 90 points this afternoon as interest rates rose and the dollar fell, but a little late bargain-hunting trimmed the market's closing losses a bit. The Dow Industrial Average closed off 71.78 at 12,397.29. The NASDAQ Composite was down 18.20 ending at 2,437.43, while the Standard & Poor's 500 Index fell 8.89 to 1,428.61. Over in the bond market, the 10-year note gained 3/32 to par and 8/32, putting the yield at 4.59 percent.
New York exchange volume leader on 15.7 million shares, the new merged company, CVS Caremark (CVS) down $0.25.
Motorola (MOT) a $0.14 drop. Investor Carl Icahn, who owns a 2.7 percent stake in Motorola, still fighting to gain a seat on the board of directors.
Pfizer (PFE) was down $0.18.
AT&T (T) moved up $0.13.
Time Warner (TWX) a $0.07 drop there, fifth in big board volume.
And then General Electric (GE) down $0.21.
Followed by Bank of America (BAC) with a $0.28 gain.
Halliburton Co (HAL) down $0.33.
Micron Tech (MU) up $0.40.
And Ford Motor Co (F), tenth in volume, dropped $0.02 a share.
United Health Group (UNH) losing $1.03. A consumer group is asking the Department of Justice to block the company's proposed bid to acquire Sierra Health Services because the group says that would limit patient choices.
Then we see DaimlerChrysler (DCX) up $1.47. The "Detroit News" reports the first round of bids for the company's ailing Chrysler unit may be submitted within days and the bidders may include such people as the Blackstone Group, Magna International, even General Motors among others.
Then we see Mylan Labs (MYL) moving up $1.06. The company may get exclusive rights to sell the generic version of Pfizer's blood pressure drug Norvasc for a period of up to 180 days. Merrill Lynch upgraded Mylan from "sell" to a "neutral."
Nice gain in Gamestop (GME) here, up $3.19. Fourth quarter earnings $0.81, well above $0.55 last year and a penny above the Street estimate. Same store sales jumped 26 1/2 percent and the company had a very strong first quarter guidance.
PPL Corp (PPL) the old Pennsylvania Power and Light, up $1.09. Lehman Brothers upgraded it from "equal weight" to "over weight."
And then Martha Stewart (MSO) up $0.75. Bear Stearns upgraded this stock from "under perform" to "peer perform."
On the downside, Ingersoll-Rand (IR) losing $1.52. UBS financial downgraded it from "buy" to "neutral" on valuation and also because of the guarded earnings outlook from the company.
Geo Group (GEO) down $1.48. The prison services company said first quarter earnings will be cut by $0.14 a share due to a write off of deferred financing fees.
Apple (AAPL) topped the NASDAQ active list, down $0.39.
Followed by Google (GOOG) off $1.38.
Microsoft (MSFT) fell a half dollar.
Amgen (AMGN) losing $0.93.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) down $0.41 a share, fifth in dollar volume.
Intel (INTC) $0.23 loss there.
Research in Motion (RIMM) fell $1.32.
But Dell (DELL) edged up $0.13.
Sun Micro (SUNW) $0.16 drop.
Qualcomm (QCOM) up $0.21 a share, tenth in volume.
Aruba Networks (ARUN) went public today. The company makes computer networking gear. There were eight million shares offered at $11, opened at $14, the high of the day, $14.39, closed very close to the high of the day, so a nice debut for Aruba Networks.
Electronic Clearing House (ECHO) tumbling $6.38. The company and Intuit have mutually called off their proposed merger.
And then over on the American exchange, Document Security System (DMC) up $2.35. That stock dropped $1.52 yesterday after a British court ruled the company's anti-counterfeiting patent was invalid in the United Kingdom. But today, the German patent office said that that patent is valid in Germany and the stock snapped right back.
Also on the American, Allied Defense Group (ADG) losing $1.93. The FCC is probing the company's restated third quarter results.
Those are the stocks in the news tonight.
