Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Monday, October 08, 2007
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PAUL KANGAS: Stocks on Wall Street opened lower on light profit taking from last week's big gains. Trading was slow with the bond market and many banks closed for Columbus Day. At mid-session, the Dow posted a 45-point loss, while the NASDAQ Index was off seven points. In the absence of any major economic reports out today and just ahead of earnings season, buyers stayed on the sidelines for the rest of the session and the market ended narrowly mixed. The Dow Industrial Average closed off 22.28 points at 14,043.73. The tech-laden NASDAQ Composite however gained 7.05 to 2787.37, while the Standard & Poor's 500 index was down 5.01 at 1552.58.
New York exchange volume leader on 9.9 million shares, Ford Motor Co (F) down $0.18. Followed by Pfizer (PFE) with a $0.13 loss. Rumor making the rounds that Pfizer is looking to buy a stake of about 23 percent in Sanofi Aventis from shareholders Total and L'Oreal.
EMC Corp (EMC) an $0.18 gainer.
Citigroup (C) dropped a half dollar.
General Electric (GE) $0.24 loss there.
Then Co vale do Rio (RIO), the big mining company down in South America, down $0.29.
LDK Solar (LDK) off $13.45. "Barron's" financial this week suggests the stock is expensive at about 40 times projected earnings and also because of uncertainty about its inventory accounting.
China Digital TV (STV) up $11.49. That stock as we reported, went public last Friday, 12 million shares offered at $16 and it rose $12 a share on Friday alone, up almost that much today.
Sprint Nextel (S) down $0.51. You heard the news about Gary Forsee resigning as CEO and we'll have more on Sprint later in the program.
Hewlett-Packard (HWP) down $1 - or up $1.13. That's a new yearly high. UBS added the stock to its selection list.
Merrill Lynch (MER) down $2.55. Credit Suisse downgraded it from "out perform" to "neutral" today and JPMorgan a downgrade from "over weight" to "neutral." Last Friday as we reported, the company forecast a third quarter loss of $0.50 a share.
Amrep (AXR) up $5.40. The real estate services company said it's completed a 500,000 share stock buyback that it announced last July and now it's setting a new 500,000 share buyback, nice move in the stock on that news.
Ryder System (R), the big logistics and trucking company, down $3.33. The company cut its third quarter earnings guidance of $1.20 to $1.23, all the way down to $1.12 to $1.14 on lower than expected results from its U.S. fleet management solutions business and this undermined many of the trucking stocks today.
AK Steel Holding (AKS) up $4.77. It's reached a health care cost agreement with a group of Middletown, Ohio retirees from the firm.
And then ABM Industries (ABM) up $2.44, a positive reaction to the company's acquisition of OneSource Services for $365 million. The deal will be accretive to earnings in the forthcoming quarter.
Then Aeropostale (ARO), the clothing retailer, down $1.62. Caris and Company brokerage downgraded it from "above average" to just "average."
And Talbots (TLB), the department store chain, off $1.15. Friedman, Billings, Ramsey brokerage downgraded it from "market perform" to "under perform" and cut its price target from $18 down to $15 a share.
Valero Energy (VLO) moved up $2.42. Citigroup upgraded it from "hold" to "buy."
Topping the NASDAQ's most active list, Apple (AAPL) up $6.46 at a new record high, nice move there.
Research in Motion (RIMM), that's a new high, up $4.28. The company settled its dispute with iron workers on Ontario pension fund regarding stock options.
Then we see Google (GOOG), that set a record high, up $15.57, first time above $600.
Baidu.com (BIDU) did well, up $7.83.
No change at all in Microsoft (MSFT) on the day.
Then Intel (INTC) a $0.12 gain.
Business Objects (BOBJ) up $7.56. As you heard, SAP will acquire that software firm.
And then Garmin Ltd (GRMN) rebounding $4.75.
Amazon.com (AMZN) gained $2.42 on positive comments in this week's "Barron's" financial magazine.
Sun Micro (JAVA), tenth in volume, was up $0.25.
China Tech Development (CTDC) up $2.03, nice percentage move there. In this year's first half, the company showed a profit of $796,000, compared to a loss of $736,000 a year ago.
Those are the stocks in the news tonight.
