Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Monday, April 23, 2007
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PAUL KANGAS: The bank and biotech buyouts had little impact on Wall Street early today as stocks moved in a narrow range consolidating last week's big gains. At noon, the Dow and the NASDAQ were both up three points. A sharp surge in oil prices on unrest in Nigeria pushed stocks lower this afternoon with the Dow off 40 points, NASDAQ down seven at 2:30 p.m. But then a late rally attempt failed so stocks did end near their lows of the day. The Dow Industrial Average closed off 42.58 points at 12,919.40. The NASDAQ Composite off 2.72 ending at 2523.70 - 67, I should say. Standard & Poor's 500 down 3.42 at 1480.93. Over in the bond market, the 10-year note gained 7/32 to 99 27/32, putting the yield at 4.65 percent. New York exchange volume leader on 23.9 million shares, Pfizer (PFE) moving down $0.62. Prudential downgraded it from "over weight" to "neutral" because of concern that a large number of the company's drug products are nearing patent expiration. General Electric (GE) $0.33 loss.
EMC Corp (EMC) moved up $0.14.
AT&T (T) a dime drop.
Then Bank of America (BAC) down $0.53. As you heard, they're buying the La Salle bank from ABN Amro for $21 billion.
ExxonMobil (XOM) a $0.56 loss. Deutsche Bank downgraded it from "buy" to "hold" on caution over the earnings outlook there.
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) a $0.12 loss.
Time Warner (TWX) moved up $0.16.
CVS Caremark (CVS) a $0.12 gain there.
And then Valero Energy (VLO) up $2.31. You saw what oil prices did today, went through the roof.
Caterpillar (CAT) up $0.03, traded as high as $73 a share. This morning after Morgan Stanley upgraded it from "under weight" to "equal weight" on the company's upbeat earnings outlook.
And speaking of earnings, another company in the same sector as Caterpillar, CNH Global Nv (CNH) up $1.85. First quarter earnings $0.44, up from $0.20 last year, $0.13 above the Street estimate and in case you're wondering where CNH came from, that name is derived from the brand names Case and New Holland which were also in that same business.
Arch Coal (ACI) $1.56 gainer there. First quarter earnings tumbled 53 percent to $0.20 from $0.42 a year ago, but that was $0.05 better than the Street consensus and the company sees a much better second quarter. The whole coal mining sector did well today.
Consol Energy (CNX), Massey Energy (MEE) and Peabody Energy (BTU) all nice gainers. Peabody got an additional boost from AG Edwards, which upgraded it from "hold" to a "buy."
Bausch & Lomb (BOL) up $7.01. There's takeover speculation all over the Street on that one. No specific suitors named.
Hasbro (HAS) up $2.33, a real turnaround. First quarter earnings of $0.19, versus a loss of $0.03 last year and revenues jumped 34 percent. The Street was looking for just a break even quarter so quite a positive surprise.
Pre-Paid Legal Svcs (PPD) up $4.09. First quarter earnings jumped $1.08 per share versus only $0.84 last year. Membership revenues up about 2 percent.
Affiliated Computer Svcs (ACS) up $2.70. Chairman Darwin Deason and Cerberus Capital have sweetened their buyout bid from $59.25 to $62 a share.
On the downside, newspaper publisher Lee Enterprises (LEE) tumbling $4.88. Second quarter earnings excluding items, $0.26, down from $0.30 last year. Revenues fell 1.7 percent.
Administaff (ASF) down $4.32. The company sees first quarter earnings of $0.30. The Street was looking for $0.37.
And NYSE Euronext (NYX) tumbling $6.07. Goldman Sachs downgraded it from "neutral" to "sell," citing the prospect of the company losing market share.
NASDAQ's most active, Medimmune (MEDI) up $8.56 as you heard. Astra- Zeneca buying it for $58 a share. Astra stock was down $3.13 incidentally.
Google (GOOG) a $3.40 loss.
Apple (AAPL) up $2.54. Apple's earnings due out Wednesday. The Street looking for $0.64 a share.
Intel (INTC) $0.25 loss.
Amgen (AMGN) a $0.22 gainer.
Microsoft (MSFT) down $0.24.
Followed by Cisco Systems (CSCO) with a $0.41 loss.
Yahoo! (YHOO) a $0.42 gain.
Dendreon (DNDN) moved up $1.69 today.
And Applied Materials (AMAT) was down $0.31. Those are the stocks in the news tonight.
