Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Friday, November 02, 2007
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PAUL KANGAS: Wall Street opened with a slightly positive knee-jerk reaction to the better than expected employment report. But that troubling news in the financial sector and the renewed surge in oil futures pushed the Dow to a 107-point loss by noontime, while the NASDAQ Composite was down 11 points. All that selling on top of yesterday's tumble attracted bargain buying this afternoon and the market stair-stepped its way to a higher close. The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended up 27.23 at 13,595.10. This week it fell twice, rose three times, losing 211.60 points overall. The NASDAQ Composite gained 15.55 to 2810.38 today. It also fell twice and rose three time this week, but had a net gain of 6.19 points. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index gained 1.21, ending at 1509.65 today and for the week, it was down 25.63 points. Over in the bond market, the 10-year note gained 8/32 to 103 13/32, putting the yield at 4.32 percent.
Far and away the most active big board issue on nearly 42 million shares was Citigroup (C) down $0.78. As you heard, the company reportedly is going to have an emergency board meeting this weekend. There could be management changes is the speculation.
Then came Merrill Lynch (MER) down $4.92 after trading as low as $54.66. You heard the story there and Deutsche bank downgraded the stock from "strong buy" to just a "buy."
Service Corp Intl (SCI) very active but unchanged, but index fund buying. The stock was added to the Standard & Poor's madcap 400 index after the close today.
GE (GE) fell a penny.
Bank of America (BAC) down $0.60.
Then we see JPMorgan Chase (JPM) down $1.20.
Ford Motor (F) close possibly to a contract with the UAW, up $0.45.
Wells Fargo (WFC) managed to gain $0.16.
Pfizer (PFE) $0.29 loss.
And then came Countrywide Financial (CFC) with a $0.04 loss.
Chevron (CVX) down $0.56. Third quarter earnings fell 25 percent from $2.29 a year ago to $1.75 this year. The company cited lower profits from gasoline production.
Then Goldman Sachs (GS) tumbling $10.61. Standard & Poor's downgraded it from "strong buy" to just a "buy" on a valuation basis.
Consolidated Edison (ED), New York City power company, up $0.63, good earnings, third quarter, $1.15, up from $0.92 a year ago and $0.09 better than the Street was expecting.
Cigna Corp (CI), big insurance company, down $1.82 despite higher third quarter earnings of $1.28 versus $0.92. Revenues were up 6.7 percent.
And Las Vegas Sands (LVS), the casino operator, down $8.53, traded as low as $108.90 after reporting sharply lower third quarter earnings of $0.12 versus $0.33 a year ago. That was $0.19 below the Street estimate.
And Western Digital (WDC) up $2.89. The company in with third quarter earn - first quarter earnings lower, $0.31 versus $0.46, despite a 40 percent jump in revenues, but the company sees second quarter earnings jumping up to $0.75 versus a $0.58 Street estimate and Karis (ph) & Company brokerage upgraded it from "above average" to a "buy" recommendation.
Big gain in Flowserve CP (FLS) up $12.94. Third quarter earnings more than doubled to $1.10 from $0.51 last year. Sales were up 19 percent.
Oil States Intl (OIS) tumbling $5.55. Lower earnings for the third quarter, $0.97 down from $0.99 last year. The company sees flat fourth quarter earnings of around $0.92 to $0.98.
Checkpoint (CKP) fell $2.32. It had higher third quarter earnings of $0.34 versus $0.32 a year ago, but that was $0.02 below the Wall Street consensus. No room for disappointment.
Allegheny Tech (ATI) up $4. The specialty medicals - metals company I should say, is going to buy back up to half a billion dollars worth of its own stock and is boosting the quarterly dividend from $0.13 to $0.18 a share.
Apple (AAPL) topped the NASDAQ active list, up $0.43.
And then Google (GOOG) up $8.04, but it's not quite a new high.
Baidu.com (BIDU) up $23.05.
No change in Microsoft (MSFT).
Research in Motion (RIMM) was up $4.87, a lot of good buying in these high tech stocks.
Crocs (CROX) was down $0.22 after a big drop yesterday.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) $0.33 gain.
Intel (INTC) up $0.30.
Yahoo! (YHOO) up $0.89.
And tenth in volume was Ebay (EBAY) with a $0.02 gain.
Finally we see a new issue today, Neutral Tandem (TNDM), a telecom company offered to the public were 6.65 million shares priced at $14, opened at $18, the high of the day, $20.90, closed pretty close to the high, nice debut. And those are the stocks in the news tonight.
