Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Friday, November 16, 2007
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PAUL KANGAS: Wall Street's blue chips opened higher with an initial 50- point rise in the Dow, but a 15-point loss in the NASDAQ soon wiped out that upturn. Stocks traded mixed over the midday hours, then gained ground after Deutsche Bank boosted its outlook for oil prices and upped its ratings on a half a dozen oil stocks. So, the energy issue spearheaded a broad late rally which produced moderate gains at the final bell. The Dow Industrial Average closed up 66.74 points at 13,176.79. This week, it fell three times, rose twice, had a net gain of 134.05 points. The NASDAQ Composite rose 18.73 points today, ending at 2637.24. It also fell three times and gained twice this week, advancing 9.30 points overall. Standard & Poor's 500 was up 7.58 to 1458.74 today and it gained 5.04 points for the weak overall. Over in the bond market, the 10-year note fell 8/32 to par and 21/32, putting the yield at 4.17 percent.
Most active big board issue on 32.2 million shares, American Tower (AMT) up $0.75. The stock was added to today to the Standard & Poor's 500 Index, replacing Alltel, which is being acquired by TPG Capital, a private equity firm and some others.
Then came Citigroup (C) for the first time in 12 sessions, it didn't top the active list today, down $0.58.
General Electric (GE) $0.34 gainer.
Wells Fargo & Co (WFC) down $0.83.
Pfizer (PFE) moved up a dime a share.
And moving along in the active list, Alltel (AT) finishing out its trading life and because it's being taken over as I mentioned, up $0.26.
Ford Motor Co (F) an $0.08 drop.
AT&T (T) was up $0.18.
EMC Corp (EMC) a $0.32 gain.
Then came Bank of America (BAC) rising $0.29 a share.
Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) up $1.85. Credit Suisse boosted its price target for Hewlett from $52 to $60 a share. Fourth quarter earnings from Hewlett are due out Monday.
Then came the oils which led that rally this afternoon. Chevron (CVX) up $1.82. Deutsche Bank boosted its outlook for oil prices and also upgraded this stock from "sell" to "hold" at a number of other upgrades. Let's have a look at the sector.
ConocoPhillips (COP), Marathon Oil (MRO), Occidental Petro (OXY), Hess Corp (HES) and Suncor Energy (SU) all among the top picks by Deutsche Bank. The stocks did very nicely.
Fedex (FDX) however, down $4.57. The company sees second quarter earnings of $1.55 a share at best and that's down from the previous forecast of $1.75 a share at best.
Agilent Tech (A) moving up $3.02. Fourth quarter earnings adjusted basis, $0.53, up from $0.45 a year ago, revenues up 9 percent. And the company sees first quarter revenues 5 to 9 percent higher than the year ago.
Jack in the Box (JBX) good day, up $4.67. Fourth quarter earnings were lower, $0.43, down from $0.46, but $0.04 above the Street consensus. Same store sales up 5 1/2 percent. The company set a new $200 million stock buyback program.
Salesforce.com (CRM) up $6.56. Third quarter earnings came in at $0.05 versus break even a year ago. Those earnings $0.02 above the Street estimate and the company also got a big order from Citigroup and that helped the stock a lot.
Virgin Mobil USA (VM) down $1.54. This stock just went public in October at 15. Today it reported a third quarter loss of $0.15 a share, worse than the $0.10 loss a year ago. Operating costs were higher, said the firm.
The Steak n Shake Company (SNS) down $1.74. Fourth quarter earnings plunged to $0.05 from $0.27 a year ago. Sales down almost 4 percent.
And then we see the Moneygram Intl (MGI) down $1.18. Wachovia downgraded it from "market outperform" to "market perform."
And then another new issue, El Paso Pipeline (EPB) went public today, 25 million units offered at $20, opened at $20.50, the high, $21.49, backed down a little, but still had a positive debut.
Apple (AAPL) topped the NASDAQ active list, moving up $2.09.
Followed by Research in Motion (RIMM) up $4.56.
Then Google (GOOG) with almost a $4 gain.
Baidu.com (BIDU) however, down $12.71.
Microsoft (MSFT) was a $0.33 gainer today.
Garmin (GRMN) up $13.51. The company will not pursue its buyout bid for Tele-Atlas (ph). Also it signed a six-year extension of its deal with Navtech (ph), another digital map maker.
Intel (INTC) down $0.02.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) up $0.64. The company is adding $10 billion to its stock buyback program.
Starbucks (SBUX) down $0.93. The company's CEO said traffic in its stores is slowing for the first time. After the close yesterday, the company reported fourth quarter earnings of $0.21, up from $0.15 a year ago.
Then Yahoo! (YHOO) up $1.40, tenth in volume on NASDAQ.
And you want to end the week with a big gainer, we did it, Coley Pharmaceutical (COLY) up $4.81, 160 percent run up. Pfizer will acquire the company for $8 a share in cash.
And those are the stocks in the news tonight.
