Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Friday, July 13, 2007
|
|
|
|
PAUL KANGAS: Wall Street opened on a firm note today, even after yesterday's huge rally. An hour into trading, the Dow was up 22 points supported by gains in the stocks of GE, Exxon and Alcoa while the NASDAQ was off only 6 points on some mild profit taking in the tech sector. Stocks continued to improve as that retail sales report was overshadowed by a better than expected consumer sentiment reading from the University of Michigan. The upward momentum also overpowered higher oil prices as stocks ended broadly higher. The Dow Industrial Average closed up 45.52 at a new record 13,907.25. This week, it rose in four of the five sessions for a net gain of 295.57 points. The NASDAQ Composite was up 5.27 to a record 2707 even today. It also rose in four of this week's five days, advancing 40.49 points overall. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index gained 4.80 to 1552.50 today. Over in the bond market, the 10-year note gained 8/32 to 95 13/32, putting the yield at 5.10 percent. The most active big board issue on 31 million shares was General Electric (GE) moving up $0.50. I believe that's a five year closing high and the high of the day was $40.17. As you heard, second quarter earnings up 10 percent at $0.52 and GE is predicting third quarter earnings of $0.54 to $0.56 a share. Standard & Poor's repeated a "strong buy" on the stock today. Then came Alcoa (AA) up $2.06. Yesterday as we reported, the company withdrew its buyout bid for Alcan Aluminum and said it will use some of the money to buy back its own stock.
Pfizer (PFE) was down $0.07.
Motorola (MOT) an $0.18 drop there. Moody's cut Motorola's outlook from stable to negative today.
Ford Motor Co (F) edged a penny higher, very active.
EMC Corp (EMC) a $0.06 loss.
ExxonMobil (XOM) closing at $90.33, an all-time high with that gain of $0.71.
Annaly Capital Mortgage (NLY) down $0.11. Last night, the company priced a 47 million share offering at $14 even.
Citigroup (C) was down $0.32.
And then Kraft Foods (KFT) up $1.09. Late today, the "Wall Street Journal" reported that Carl Icahn, the billionaire investor, has taken a stake in Kraft Foods.
Baker Hughes (BHI), the oil service company, plunging %5.13 after the company said second quarter earnings will be about $1.08 a share, down from the first quarter $1.17 and well below the Street estimate of $1.18 a share. The company cited poor results in its Canadian operations.
Shaw Group (SGR), a manufacturer of pipes among other things, up $6.50. Citigroup upgraded it from "hold" to "buy" and boosted its price target from $45 to $70 a share, mainly because the company has a third quarter huge backlog.
Black & Decker (BDK) down $1.12. Merrill Lynch downgraded it from "buy" to "neutral," citing the company's exposure to the sagging housing industry.
But a home builder, Hovnanian Enterprises (HOV) up $1.98 on speculation Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Corporation might be buying a stake in that stock.
RadioShack (RSH) fell $2.12. Bank America downgraded it from "neutral" to a "sell" rating.
And then a good gainer, Playtex Products (PYX) up $2.45. Energizer Corp. will acquire Playtex for $18.30 a share in cash.
Fleetwood Enterprises (FLE) up $1.47. BB&T Capital brokerage upgraded it from "hold" to "buy."
Also on the upside was Smithfield Foods (SFD) rising $1.14. The company said it's in talks to sell pork products to China.
And on the downside, Genesee & Wyoming Railroad (GWR) off $1.08. The company's railroad June traffic car loads were down 7.3 percent.
NASDAQ's most active, Apple (AAPL) up $3.66.
And then Research in Motion (RIMM) up just over $12.
Google (GOOG) up $6.83, some nice moves there.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) a $0.09 gain.
And Intel (INTC) was down $0.03, but very active.
Microsoft (MSFT) $0.25 loss.0
Baidu.com (BIDU) up $6.64.
Amazon.com (AMZN) up $2.31.
Applied Matl (AMAT) fell $0.27.
And then Amgen (AMGN) with a $0.98 gain.
Macrovision (MVSN) fell $3.56. The company cut its second quarter outlook, partially due to a royalty dispute with an unnamed company.
And then a huge loser, Idenix Pharmaceuticals (IDIX) losing 38 percent of its value. The company said it's going to have to write off its experimental hepatitis C drug because it couldn't get approval from the FDA. Those are the stocks in the news tonight.
