Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
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PAUL KANGAS: Stocks opened narrowly mixed, but firmed up on those weaker oil prices, strong earnings from Morgan Stanley and a solid gain in Home Depot stock. At 11:00 a.m., the Dow was up 27 points, NASDAQ up 6 points. But as the day wore on, rising bond yields undermined stocks. Then, worries heated up about the possible collapse of two Bear Stearns hedge funds connected to the sub-prime mortgage market. That brought sellers off the sidelines big time. The Dow Industrial Average tumbled 146 points exactly closing at 13,489.42. The NASDAQ Composite fell 26.80 points ending at 2,599.96. Standard & Poor's 500 Index lost 20.86 at 1,512.84. Over in the bond market, the 10-year note lost 12/32 to 95 3/32, lifting the yield to 5.14 percent.
For the second day in a row, General Electric (GE) led the active list today on 27 million shares and down $0.22. It was up to a five-year high yesterday, gained $1.50. Then came Home Depot (HD) with a gain of $1.76, traded as high as $41.19. Late yesterday as we reported the company's going to sell its contractor supplies unit for over $10 billion and use the proceeds to help fund a huge $22.5 billion stock buy back.
Pfizer (PFE) down $0.50.
Time Warner (TWX) rose $0.62.
Ford Motor (F) was up $0.21 per share.
Then EMC Corp (EMC) losing $0.41.
AT&T (T) dropped $0.71.
ExxonMobil (XOM) in the weak oil group on the tumbling oil prices, down $3.02.
Tyco Intl (TYC) $0.98 drop.
And then Motorola (MOT) losing $0.17 a share.
Morgan Stanley (MS) closed down $0.48, but this morning traded as high as $90.33 after reporting second quarter earnings of $2.45, well above last year's $1.74 and that was $0.44 better than the Street consensus.
Another big gain here in the financial area, Nuveen Investments (JNC) jumping nearly $9 a share on news private equity fund Madison Dearborn Partners will acquire it for over $6 billion. That works out to $65 a share in cash.
Dow Jones (DJ) up $1.90. After the close, the board of directors said it will take over negotiations with News Corp. regarding the $60 a share buyout bid for Dow Jones.
FedEx (FDX) up $1.73. Fourth quarter earnings rose to $1.96 from $1.82 last year. That does include a one-time $0.06 gain however.
Carmax (KMX) did well, up $2.42. Higher earnings first quarter, $0.30, up from $0.27 a year ago. Sales up 14 percent and those figures were in line with Street estimates.
Circuit City (CC) gained $0.03, even though it had reported a first quarter loss of $0.33, a penny worse than expected.
The industrial packaging company Clarcor (CLC) up $4.73. Second quarter earnings jumped to $0.41 from $0.31, $0.32 last year and that was $0.04 better than the Wall Street estimate.
Airgas (ARG) rising $2.26. The company boosted its first quarter earnings guidance to the range of $0.61 to $0.63. BB&T Capital brokerage upgraded the stock from "hold" to a "buy."
Major loss in Brush Engineered Materials (BW) tumbling over $10 a share after the company cut its second quarter estimate, said it would be below its prior estimate of $0.50 to $0.65 so that means it would be below $0.50. The Street was looking for at least $0.60 a share.
MGM Mirage (MGM) down $5.90. Kirk Kerkorian's Tracinda Corp. has dropped its bid for the company's Bellagio hotel and city center properties.
And then Darden Restaurants (DRI) losing $3.41. Fourth quarter operating earnings, $0.67, up from $0.62 last year, but that's $0.03 below the Street estimate and Standard & Poor's downgraded the stock from "hold" to a "sell."
NASDAQ's most active for the ninth time in the last 10 sessions, today down $2.11, Apple (AAPL).
Google (GOOG) off $4.34.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) dropped a dime.
Intel (INTC) a $0.16 loss.
Microsoft (MSFT) losing $0.45 a share.
Qualcomm (QCOM) $0.38 gain.
Yahoo! (YHOO) edgew up $0.03.
Research in Motion (RIMM) down $3.05.
Comcast Corp "A" (CMCSA) an $0.08 gain.
And then Amgen (AMGN) down $0.43 a share.
Fuel Tech NV (FTEK) up $5.28 on news it's exploring opportunities in China.
And finally, the shares of Coley Pharmaceutical (COLY) fell $5.03 or 59 percent to $3.46. Development partner Pfizer has pulled trials of Coley's experimental lung cancer drug, calling it ineffective. The Lazard brokerage downgraded Coley from "buy" to "hold."
