Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Monday, December 17, 2007
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PAUL KANGAS: Bearish sentiment dominated Wall Street as stocks opened this morning broadly lower amid growing fears of recession and inflation. The Dow fell 90 points at the outset of trading and the NASDAQ lost 22. A mild midday rally attempt failed as worries about the economy weighed again on investors. The market was also pressured by a sharp drop in New York State's December manufacturing activity. Against this negative backdrop, stocks closed near their worst levels of the day. The Dow Industrial Average ended down 172.65 points at 13,167.20. The NASDAQ Composite lost 61.28 points at 2574.46, while the Standard & Poor's 500 Index fell 22.05 to 1445.90. Over in the bond market, the 10-year note climbed 24/32 to par and 26/32, putting the yield at 4.15 percent.
A familiar one at the top of the active list on the big board, Citigroup (C) trading 27.7 million shares and edging up $0.07, an uptick for a change.
General Electric (GE) down $0.43.
Then Pfizer (PFE) with a $0.13 loss.
Followed by Bank of America (BAC) a $0.46 drop.
ExxonMobil (XOM) was off $1.29.
Ford Motor Co (F) lost $0.09 a share. The "Wall Street Journal" reports the company is close to deciding what to do with its Jaguar and Land Rover units.
AT&T (T) down $0.64.
Washington Mutual (WM) a $0.23 drop.
Advanced Micro (AMD) fell $0.48.
And then JPMorgan Chase (JPM) with a $0.67 closing loss.
Caterpillar (CAT) hurt the Dow today with that loss of $2.23. Morgan Stanley downgraded it from "equal weight" to "under weight" with a target of $67 a share.
Then Trane (TT) a big gainer, up $8.04. Ingersoll Rand will acquire Trane for $36.50 a share in cash, plus about a quarter of a share of Ingersoll stock and today that deal would be worth about $46.50 a share to Trane shareholders. Ingersoll stock tumbled $5.58 to $43.60 on the news. Incidentally, the merged company will be the largest manufacturer of air conditions in the world.
Grant Prideco (GRP) up $6.45. National Oilwell Varco will acquire this company for $23.20 a share in cash and about .45 shares of National Oilwell. That has a value today of about $55 a share for Grant Prideco owners. And incidentally, National Oilwell stock plunged $6.68 to $70.69 per share.
Plains Exploration & Production Co (PXP) up $0.87. The company's going to sell some of its oil and gas properties to Occidental Petroleum and XTO Energy for $1.75 billion and then plans to buy back $1 billion worth of its own stock.
Delek US Holdings (DK), this is a refiner, up $1.79. The company received an upgrade from Citigroup from "hold" to a "buy." Tesoro got the same upgrade, but Tesoro stock edged up only $0.84 to $47.71.
LDK Solar Co (LDK) up $11.34. The company says its audit committee found no errors in silicone inventory reports as alleged by a former employee.
Allied World Assurance (AWH) up $2.31. The company bought 11.7 million of its shares from its founding company, AIG Corp. and they paid $48.19. That represented a little over 19 percent of the float.
Ambac Financial (ABK), the bond insurer, Moody's completed the review of the company's capital position and affirmed a triple A rating with a stable outlook, did the same for MBIA and that stock edged up $0.94.
UBS AG (UBS) up, I should say down $1.24. CIBC World Markets brokerage downgraded it from "sector perform" to "under perform."
Apple (AAPL) topped the NASDAQ active list, down nearly $6.
Google (GOOG) tumbled $20.73. Google is testing a new product that will compete with Wikipedia.
And then Baidu.com (BIDU) down nearly $37 a share.
$5.72 loss in Research in Motion (RIMM).
Microsoft (MSFT) falling $0.92.
And then Intel (INTC) a $0.57 loss.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) dropped $0.70.
First Solar (FSLR) hit for a $19.72 loss.
Yahoo! (YHOO) off $1.02.
And then Oracle (ORCL) off just $26 a share.
Starbucks (SBUX) was off $1.10. RBC Capital brokerage downgraded it from "out perform" to "sector perform" partly because they say the company's pricing power has eroded.
And then Esmark (ESMK) plunging $2.67 on news the company's $1.3 billion deal to buy a steel mill from ArcelorMittal fell through. The deal fell through.
And those are the stocks in the news tonight.
