Paul Kangas' Stock in the News
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
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PAUL KANGAS: Well, Wall Street opened with solid gains. After two days of sharp losses, many investors felt the selling was overdone. So in a steady advance, the Dow posted a 142-point gain at noontime and the NASDAQ composite was up 33. Then, those Bernanke comments spurred a growing belief that, with the Fed ready to help, the worst of the credit crunch might be over. That helped the markets rebound and attract more buying. So, the Dow Industrial Average closed up 247.44 points at 13,289.29. The NASDAQ Composite jumped 62.52 points to 2563.16. The Standard & Poor's 500 index was up 31.40 ending at 1463.76. Over in the bond market, the 10-year note lost 15/32 to 101 15/32, bringing the yield up to 4.56 percent.
New York exchange volume leader was Pfizer (PFE) on 14 million shares, moving up $0.20. Then Home Depot (HD) with a nice gain of $1.50. The company is going ahead with its $22 billion Dutch tender offer for up to 250 million of its own shares and it'll pay between $37 and $42 each.
GE (GE) $0.66 advance.
And then finally a gain in Countrywide Financial (CFC) up a half dollar.
Citigroup (C) gained $0.81 a share. Yesterday it was down $1.65 on that Merrill Lynch downgrade from "buy" to "neutral," so a little rebound there.
ExxonMobil (XOM) up $2.23 on the sharp rise in oil futures.
Bank of America (BAC) edged up $0.89.
Then Ford Motor (F) $0.21 gain.
EMC Corp (EMC) $0.54 rise.
And then came Time Warner (TWX) with a gain of $0.42 a share.
Nokia (NOK) did well, up $2.17. I believe that that is a six-year high. The company is launching a version of its N95 handset called Ovi, and it will rival Research in Motion's Blackberry device as well as Apple's iPhone, so they're going to get some competition from Nokia.
Seagate Tech (STX) a $0.93 gain. The company boosted its previous first quarter earnings estimate from the range of $0.35 to $0.39 all the way up to $0.57 to $0.61. Meanwhile, Lehman Brothers boosted its price target on the stock from $27 to $29 a share.
DaimlerChrysler (DAI) up $3.27. In its first full earnings report without the Chrysler division, the company said second quarter earnings were down 14 percent, but it does plan to buy back 10 percent of its shares. That would be worth more than $10 billion.
Williams Sonoma (WSM) up $3.13. Second quarter earnings a bit lower, $0.24, versus $0.25 a year ago, but the company boosted its full year guidance from a Wall Street estimate of $1.78 all the way up to its high of $1.90 a share.
Big Lots (BIG) up $2.61. Second quarter earnings more than five times last year, $0.21 versus $0.04 then. Same store sales were up 5.2 percent and Standard & Poor's repeated a "buy" on big lot stock.
Dillards Cl A (DDS) down $0.14, traded as low as $0.22 today after reporting a second quarter loss of $0.31 a share versus earnings of $0.20 last year. Same store sales fell 3 percent.
Then Pike Electric (PEC) down $1.55. Fourth quarter earnings jumped to $0.17 from only $0.09 a year ago, but that was just in line with Street estimates and revenues fell 7.5 percent. Then Standard & Poor's came along and downgraded it from "strong buy" to "buy."
Dycom Industries (DY) up $3.77. Fourth quarter earnings moved up $0.35 from $0.25 a year ago, $0.03 above the Street estimate. Contract revenues were up 25 percent over last year and the company will buy back up to $15 million worth of its own stock in the next 18 months.
Medicis Pharma (MRX) up $1.58. The board has approved a $200 million stock buyback there.
Apple (AAPL) up $7.26. The company has invited the press to a special event, September 5th in San Francisco. Goldman Sachs repeated a "buy" recommendation, thinks the company will introduce a new iPod at that special event.
Intel (INTC) $1.13 gain.
Google (GOOG) did well, up $6.48.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) edging up $0.59.
Microsoft (MSFT) $0.66 gain there.
Research in Motion (RIMM) up $4.62.
But PDL Biopharma (PDLI) plunging $4.80. The company's major shareholders demanding the resignation of its chairman and want management to focus on the sale of the company.
Baidu.com (BIDU) up $6.84.
Oracle (ORCL) moved up $0.77.
And Yahoo! (YHOO) a $0.03 gain.
And finally tonight, shares of Synovis Life (SYNO) Technologies rising $2.66 or 18 percent to $17.46. The medical device maker posts a fiscal third quarter profit of $0.10 a share versus a loss of $0.04 in the year ago period and that was thanks to strong revenues from its surgical business.
