Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Monday, October 01, 2007
|
|
|
|
PAUL KANGAS: Wall Street began the fourth quarter with a strong rally as buyers viewed Citigroup's earnings warning as the low point in its bottom line for some time to come. Adding to the bullish enthusiasm, Citigroup boosted several home builder stocks to a "buy" rating, saying the worst of the housing slump could be over. By the noon hour, the Dow posted a 148-point gain. That was at a record high. And then driven by renewed optimism for even lower interest rates, a drop in oil futures and frantic short covering, stocks soared for the rest of the session. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rocketed 191.92 points to a record close of 14,087.55. The NASDAQ vaulted 39.49 points to 2740.99, while the Standard & Poor's 500 Index jumped 20.29 ending at 1547.04. Over in the bond market, the 10-year note climbed 11/32 to 101 18/32, putting the yield at 4.55 percent.
Most active issue on the New York exchange trading 29 3/4 million shares, Solectron (SLR) down $0.03. Flextronics Corp. closed on its acquisition of Solectron for $3.89 a share in cash or one third of a share of Flextronics, which is worth about $3.89 it turns out. Ford Motor Co (F) in there with a $0.26 drop.
Walgreen Co (WAG) a major casualty today down $7.08 and it traded as low as $39.94 a share. This morning Walgreen's reported fourth quarter earnings of $0.40, down from $0.41 a year ago. That's the first quarterly profit decline in almost 10 years. The Street estimate was up there at $0.47 a share. Goldman Sachs downgraded the stock from "buy" to "neutral" today. Standard & Poor's downgraded it from "strong buy" to just a "hold."
Citigroup (C) bucking the trend, up $1.05 despite the bad news on the earnings warning.
And then CVS Caremark (CVS) off $2.48. It did reaffirm this year's earnings estimate, but I think it was down in sympathy with Walgreens.
Then we have a look at Pfizer (PFE) up $0.42.
General Electric (GE) a $0.62 gain.
Time Warner (TWX) a $0.39 advance there.
And EMC Corp (EMC) edged a penny higher.
General Motors (GM), tenth in volume, was down $0.65 a share.
Pulte Homes (PHM) up $1.18. Citigroup upgraded it from "hold" to "buy" in the belief that the worst of the housing slump may be over and gave the same "hold" to "buy" upgrade for three other homebuilding stocks. Let's have a look at what they did.
DR Horton (DHI) and Lennar (LEN) gaining fractionally.
But Ryland Group (RYL) up $1.13 on that upgrade.
Furniture Brands Intl (FBN) up $3.54. There's speculation that Samson Holdings Ltd., which already owns 15 percent, might seek a business combination with Furniture Brands.
United Parcel Service (UPS), up $0.80 a share. The company and the Teamsters union are in a tentative five-year labor contract. Citigroup repeated a "buy" with a price target of $85 a share for UPS.
American States Water Co (AWR) up $0.61, but this morning it was as high as $42.83 on news the company signed a 50-year deal worth $575 million to operate and maintain water and wastewater services at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
And finally the big grocery chain Supervalu (SVU) losing $2.39 of its value. Bank America started covering the stock with a "sell" recommendation.
NASDAQ's most active, Apple (AAPL) up $2.87. The Caris (ph) and Company brokerage boosted its price target from $165 to $175 a share.
Google (GOOG) participating in the big rally today, up $15.28.
Garmin Ltd (GRMN) tumbling $12.17. Nokia's pending acquisition of its rival Navteq could pose tougher competition in the mapping software business.
Research in Motion (RIMM) up $0.11.
Then came Intel (INTC) with a $0.51 gain.
Baidu.com (BIDU) down $4.84.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) a $0.14 drop there.
Microsoft (MSFT) up $0.31.
Maxim Integrated (MXIM) fell $1.09.
And then came Qualcomm (QCOM) with a $0.17 loss.
Acxiom (ACXM) tumbling $3.90, almost 20 percent drop. The company's in the data management technology business and Silver Lake and ValueAct Capital have cancelled or at least backed away from their buyout bid of $27.10 a share.
And over on the American exchange, ADVENTRX Pharmaceutical (ANX) losing 78 percent of its value today. The company's ANX 5-10 (ph) treatment for colorectal cancer had very disappointing trial results.
And those are the stocks in the news.
