Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Monday, July 09, 2007
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PAUL KANGAS: Wall Street opened the week moderately higher with buying encouraged by takeover speculation on FedEx, a big stock buy back at Johnson & Johnson and analyst upgrades on Terex and Cummins engine. At midday, the Dow posted a 35-point gain and the NASDAQ was up two points. A drop in bond yields and lower oil prices had the Dow up 60 points, flirting with a record high this afternoon. But it pulled back a bit on investor caution ahead of those Alcoa results. So the Dow Industrial Average closed up 38.29 points at 13,649.97. The NASDAQ Composite was up 3.51 at 2670.02. Standard & Poor's 500 Index rose 1.41 to 1531.85. Over in the bond market, the 10-year note rose 12/32nds to 95-4/32, lowering the yield at 5.14 percent.
Most active New York exchange issue on 24.2 million shares, Time Warner (TWX) edging down $0.04.
Followed by Kraft Foods (KFT) which was up $0.77.
Ford Motor Co (F) dropped $0.03. The company and Southern California Edison are teaming up in an effort to speed up delivery of mass produced hybrid vehicles to the marketplace. And incidentally, both Ford and GM decided to extend their incentive programs to offset declining sales.
General Electric (GE) up $0.14 today.
And then Pfizer (PFE) with a $0.04 loss in there, quite active.
Taiwan Semi (TSM) up $0.25.
Micron Tech (MU) a $0.03 loss.
Hilton Hotels (HLT) we know the story there, down $0.16.
EMC Corp (EMC) a $0.07 loss.
And then ConocoPhillips (COP) up $3.01 on news the company will buy back up to $15 billion of its own stock by the end of 2008.
And speaking of buybacks, Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) up $0.59, plans to buy back up to $10 billion of its stock.
Another good gainer today was Fedex (FDX) rising $5.33. This week's "Barron's" financial magazine mentions the company as a possible take over candidate and perhaps at a price as much as 20 percent above the current level.
Sequa "A" (SQAa), look at this gainer, up 52.6 percent with that nearly $60 a share gain. The industrial parts manufacturer has received a $175 per share cash buyout bid from Carlisle Group private equity firm.
Lear Corp (LEA) up nearly $1, $0.99, the board has approved the sweetened $37.25 per share merger bid from Carl Icahn and that's up from $36 a share bid.
Trina Solar Ltd (TSL) up $9.29. The company won several big contracts to supply solar photovoltaic modules to European buyers.
KBR Inc (KBR), the old Kellogg Brown and Root, up $3.63. The Houston oil services company was awarded $2.8 billion in engineering and construction contracts for a big project in the country of Algeria.
Cummins (CMI) up $11.15. Bear Stearns upgraded it from "peer perform" to "out perform."
And a big upgrade on Terex (TEX), too, Baird brokerage upgraded it from "neutral" to "out perform."
On the downside, Meadowbrook Insurance Group (MIG) dropping $1.32. The company's going to sell 5.5 million shares to the public and the chairman or his wife or one of her trusts (ph) will sell another 1.75 million for a total of 7.25 million shares for sale to the public.
And then Lexmark Intl (LXK) off $3.15. The company slashed its second and third quarter earnings forecast because of lower than expected ink jet supply sales.
Apple (APPL) topped the active list on NASDAQ, down $1.97. JPMorgan expects the company to launch a cheaper nano iPhone in the fourth quarter of this year.
Google (GOOG) up $3.16. Think Equity brokerage repeated a "buy" and boosted its price target on Google to $700 a share. And meanwhile the company will acquire privately held Postini (ph) Corp. for $625 million. Postini is an online security provider.
Intel (INTC) $0.28 gain there. Bear Stearns boosted its price target to $27 a share.
Research in Motion (RIMM) down $0.95.
First Solar (FSLR) up $23.05. It received a $1.3 billion contract to provide solar panels to European buyers.
Amazon.com (AMZN) up $3.10.
Microsoft (MSFT) a dime loss.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) $0.02 drop.
Baidu.com (BIDU) fell $3.70.
Sandisk (SNDK) was up $2.04 a share.
Then we have one more good gainer, First Indiana Corp (FINB) up $9.22. Marshall and Ilsley (ph) which is a bank holding company will acquire it for $32 a share in cash.
And those are the stocks in the news.
