Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
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PAUL KANGAS: The steep drop in home sales, along with the decline in consumer confidence, put Wall Street on the defensive early today, as both the Dow and the NASDAQ fell 12 points at the outset of trading. But the blue chips came on strong as IBM announced a big stock buyback and dividend boost, while Dupont and AT&T posted better than expected earnings. At 2:30 this afternoon, the Dow was up 59 points, just 20 points below 13,000, but then it eased a bit. So the industrial average closed up 34.54 at 12,953.94. The NASDAQ Composite rose just .87 at 2,524.54, while the Standard & Poor's 500 Index lost .52 to 1,480.41. Over in the bond market, the 10-year note rose 6/32 to par. That put the yield at 4.62 percent.
Big board volume leader on 32.2 million shares, Advanced Micro (AMD) moving up $0.53. The company's in the process of offering $2 billion in convertible notes.
CVS Caremark (CVS) up $1.62. That's in sympathy with better than expected results from Express Scripts and they're in the same business.
Texas Instrument (TXN) a nice gain of $2.51. After the close yesterday, first quarter earnings $0.35, a penny below last year, but $0.04 above the Street estimate and the company sees second quarter earnings at $0.39 to $0.42, well above the $0.37 per share Street estimate.
Pfizer (PFE) $0.20 loss there.
General Electric (GE) dropped $0.04 a share.
Motorola (MOT) a $0.25 drop there.
ExxonMobil (XOM) on lower oil prices today, a $0.60 drop.
Cinemark Holdings (CNK), this is the country's third largest movie chain and it went public today 28 million share offering at $19. It opened there, got as high as $19.30 and then backed down and ended $0.09 below the offering price.
Micron Tech (MU) a $0.38 gain.
Taiwan Semiconductor (TSM) up $0.21.
IBM (IBM) the star of the Dow today, up $3.28, traded as high as $99.90. It plans to buy back an additional $15 billion in stock, boosting its quarterly dividend from $0.30 to $0.40 a share and it sees 2007 earnings growth of about 7 percent, a lot of good news for big blue today.
AT&T (T) lost $0.67, even though fourth quarter earnings of $0.65 were up from $0.52 last year and $0.04 above the Street estimate. But revenues were disappointingly slightly below estimates. That may have hurt the stock.
Dupont (DD) up $0.67. First quarter earnings $1.07, $0.04 more than the Street was looking for and up from $0.93 a year ago.
United States Steel (X) down $3.96. First quarter earnings were $2.32. That was $0.44 above the Street estimate, but the company also sees second quarter earnings at $2.32 and that's $0.30 below the Wall Street estimate, hence the loss in the stock.
Whirlpool (WHR) had a big day, up $12.50. First quarter earnings of $1.55. That's down from $1.70 last year, but $0.46 better than the Street consensus.
Snap-on (SNA) a $7.41 closing gain. First quarter earnings, $0.66, well above last year's $0.37 and $0.13 better than most analysts were predicting.
Resmed (RMD) tumbling $4.70. Third quarter loss of $0.20 a share and that was due largely to a $59 million expense and the recall of the company's generators, air flow generators. Standard & Poor's sees this weakness as a buying opportunity. That's what they said today.
Lexmark Intl (LXK) up or down $5.57. First quarter earnings were up $0.95 from $0.78 last year, but $0.08 below the consensus. And today, both Goldman Sachs and Standard & Poor's repeated "sell" recommendations.
Apple (AAPL) topped the active list, down $0.27.
Medimmune (MEDI) a $0.06 gainer.
Google (GOOG) down $1.55.
Intel (INTC) $0.03 gain.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) dropped $0.25 a share.
Qualcomm (QCOM) up $1.47.
Amgen (AMGN) down $0.97. After the close yesterday, first quarter earnings were $0.94, up from $0.82, but the company sees 2007 earnings coming in at the low end of its guidance.
Microsoft (MSFT) was a penny gainer.
And there we see Express Scripts (ESRX). This is a company that's in the pharmacy benefits managing business. First quarter earnings of $1.04, were $0.10 better than the Street was expecting and the company also boosted its full year guidance.
Yahoo! (YHOO) a $0.14 gain.
And finally, Paccar (PCAR), the maker of Kenworth and Peterbilt trucks rose $7.77 on first quarter earnings of $1.46 per share, $0.25 above the consensus, citing strong European sales.
