Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Thursday, December 13, 2007
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PAUL KANGAS: That sizable jump in wholesale prices did not sit well on Wall Street this morning and the good news about retail sales was not enough to overcome it. Stocks were also undermined by some doubts as to whether the Federal Reserve's plan to ease the credit crunch will work. Just before noon, the Dow was off 108 points and the NASDAQ down 26. Selling pressure gave way to some bargain hunting this afternoon however and the market managed a mixed closing. The Dow Industrial Average ended with a gain of 44.06 at 13,517.96. The NASDAQ lost just a modest 2.65 at 2668.49, while the Standard & Poor's 500 Index gained 1.82 to 1488.41. Over in the bond market, the 10-year note fell 31/32 to par and 11/32, putting the yield at 4.21 percent.
Most active big board issue on 31 1/4 million shares, Citigroup (C) down $0.46. Yesterday as we reported, Morgan Stanley told its clients to sell the stock short. After the close today, Citi announced plans to consolidate assets and liabilities of structured investment vehicles onto its balance sheet. Washington Mutual (WM) down $0.47. Bank American downgraded it from "neutral" to "sell," cut the price target from $24 all the way down to $13 a share.
General Electric (GE) up $0.33, bucking the overall trend.
And then Pfizer (PFE) $0.17 loss.
Gamestop (GME) very active and down $1.07. Today it replaced Dow Jones in the Standard & Poor's 500 Index. More on Dow Jones incidentally coming up shortly.
Ford Motor Co (F) was down $0.07.
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) $0.13 drop.
Bank of America (BAC) off $0.38.
JPMorgan Chase (JPM) fell $0.39.
EMC Corp (EMC) down a half a dollar, tenth in big board volume.
Boeing Co (BA) up $1.63. NASA has selected the company to be its prime contractor for the Aries One rocket. That deal worth about $800 million. Also, Boeing got an order from GE's aircraft leasing unit for 55 new aircraft. That's worth about $4.5 billion.
Merck & Co (MRK) edged up $0.07 in regular trading, but after the close, FDA rejected the company's proposed over the counter cholesterol drug Novacor and the stock fell about $1 from this price in after hours trading.
Honeywell Intl (HON) had a good day, up $2.91. The company sees 2008 sales up 5 to 7 percent, earnings up 16 to 21 percent. Standard & Poor's repeated a "buy" on Honeywell.
Dow Chemical Co (DOW) up $2.64. The company and Kuwait Petroleum Corp. will form a 50-50 joint venture integrated petrochemicals company, very positive reaction to that.
Moneygram Intl (MGI) up $2.37. Euronet has offered to acquire the company for about $18 of its stock. That's .61 shares of Euronet for each share of Moneygram, but the problem today is that Euronet stock fell $4.03 and that kind of hurt the buyout price, at least for a moment.
Plantronics (PLT) down $4.94. JPMorgan downgraded it from "neutral" to "underweight." There has been a lot of concern about tough competition from Nokia and Motorola for Plantronics.
Freddie Mac (FRE) moved up $2.04. Bear Stearns says the company should have more accurate financial statements and smaller accounting losses next year, due to recent changes that had been made.
NASDAQ's most active, Apple (AAPL) up $0.97.
Google (GOOG) down $5.30.
Research in Motion (RIMM) a $4.09 gain.
Microsoft (MSFT) moved up $0.75. The company introduced a new product to compete with VM Ware and a positive reception.
Baidu.com (BIDU) down $2 a share.
Biogen Idec (BIIB) tumbling $17.97. After the close yesterday as we reported, the company said it had no success in finding a buyer, so it decided the best thing is to remain independent. Its partner in some ventures, Elan, fell $1.61 to $22.91 on disappointment over that news.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) up $0.26.
Intel (INTC) $0.12 loss.
First Solar (FSLR) up $6.67.
Costco Wholesale (COST) fell $1.65. First quarter earnings $0.59, $0.51 last year, in line with estimates, but sales fell short of estimates.
Jetblue Airways (JBLU) up $0.90 and it traded as high as $8.83 on news Lufthansa has purchased a 19 percent stake for $300 million.
And then Rigel Pharmaceuticals (RIGL) was a big gainer today. Let's have a look at that one, up $17.95 or 225 percent on news the company has a very promising arthritis treatment. Apparently that's the big story there.
Finally over on the American exchange, we had a new issue. This is K12 Inc (LRN). This is an online educational provider. Six million shares offered to the public at $18, had a very good first day, up $6.75 from the offering price.
Those are the stocks in the news tonight.
