Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Friday, August 31, 2007
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PAUL KANGAS: Wall Street's bulls came charging out of the starting gate today in full expectation that Fed chief Bernanke's speech would be sympathetic toward lower interest rates. The Dow jumped 140 points at the outset of trading and the NASDAQ rose 30 points. After a little pullback, the Dow jumped to a 175 point gain at 1 p.m. as investors examined Bernanke's remarks and those comments by President Bush. But the closing gains were trimmed a bit by caution ahead of the long upcoming weekend. The Dow Jones Industrial Average still closed up 119.01 points at 13,357.74. This week, it rose twice, fell three times and dropped 21.13 points overall. The NASDAQ Composite rose 31.06 to 2596.36 today. It fell twice and rose three times this week, gaining 19.67 points overall. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index rose 16.35 to 1473.99 today, but it fell 5.38 points for the week. Over in the bond market, the 10-year note fell 5/32 to 101 24/32, putting the yield at 4.53 percent.
Big board volume leader on 24 1/2 million shares, (HD) moving up $1.27. Last night, the company closed on the sale of its wholesale supply business for a price of $8.5 billion. The company's also planning on buying back up to 250 million of its own shares in a Dutch tender offer, which will be priced between $37 and $42 a share. General Electric (GE) gained $0.47.
And then Pfizer (PFE) $0.29 gain.
Ford Motor Co (F) moved up $0.14.
Citigroup (C) $0.65 gain there.
Time Warner (TWX) up $0.37.
Wal-Mart Stores (WMT) $0.31 gain.
Bank of America (BAC) edged up $0.47.
ExxonMobil (XOM) up $0.33.
And completing this 10 most active list, nothing but gainers, is AT&T (T) up $0.11.
Burlington Northern (BNI) up $2.94. Warren Buffett's investment company, Berkshire Hathaway, acquired another 845,000 shares during the month of August, increasing its stake to 15 percent. Mr. Buffett thinks that railroads are healthier today than they have been in past years. Let's have a look at some other rails.
CSX (CSX) doing well, up $1.
Norfolk Southern (NSC) gained $0.72. Berkshire Hathaway owns 6.4 million shares incidentally of Norfolk Southern and owns 10.5 million shares of Union Pacific, (UNP), he does like those rails.
ITT (ITT) up $3.40. The company was awarded a $207 million, three-year contract by the FAA for the first part of a $1.8 billion upgrade of the U.S. air traffic control system.
Esterline Technologies (ESL) edged up $0.64 on the close, but traded as high as $52.20 today. Third quarter earnings out, excluding one-time items, $0.61 share, $0.06 above the Street estimate. And Credit Suisse brokerage upped its price target on Esterline from $54 to $59 a share.
Christopher & Banks (CBK) down $1.49. The company's CEO, Matthew Dillon resigned from the women's apparel retailer today.
On the upside, Jones Lang Lasalle (JLL) moving up $7.38. The real estate services company's stock will be added to the Standard & Poor's madcap 400 index after the close of trading next Friday.
And OM Group (OMG) up $4.81. It's up on expectations for a turn up in cobalt prices. The company's in the cobalt refining business.
Apple (AAPL) topped the NASDAQ's most active list, up $2.23. It's expected next Wednesday to introduce the new iPod. As we touched on earlier, Apple and NBC Universal had a falling out. We'll have details on that shortly.
Intel (INTC) a $0.47 gain.
Google (GOOG) up $3.85.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) $0.49 advance.
Microsoft (MSFT) moved up $0.28 a share.
Dell (DELL) down $0.21, even though it had better than expected earnings out after the close yesterday as we reported.
Research in Motion (RIMM) up $2.54. Rumors persist that Microsoft is eyeing the company as a takeover, but no comment from either company.
Nvidia (NVDA) up $2.48.
And Baidu.com (BIDU) up $2.54.
Amazon.com (AMZN) was a gainer of $1.23.
Accredited Home Lenders (LEND) up $2.74. As you heard, Lone Star fund still interested in acquiring the company, but for a much lower $8.50 a share.
Open Text Co (OTEX), a software company, up $4.75. Fourth quarter earnings out, $0.52, way up from $0.31 last year and $0.12 above the Wall Street estimate.
On the downside, Cost Plus (CPWM) down $1 or 20 percent. The home furnishings company CFO resigned and the company did report a second quarter loss of $0.81 a share, bigger than last year's loss of $0.64 per share.
And those are the stocks in the news tonight.
