Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Monday, December 24, 2007
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PAUL KANGAS: Wall Street's knee-jerk reaction to the big capital infusion at Merrill Lynch was positive with Merrill stock leading an early rally in the financial sector. The Dow posted an 88-point gain after 30 minutes of trading while the NASDAQ was up 14 points. The market held on to its early gains, helped by optimism that the nation's retailers would get a nice boost from a late surge of last-minute shopping. The major stock indices all closed near the day's best levels. The Dow Industrial Average ended up 98.68 at 13,549.33. The NASDAQ Composite up 21 ½ points at 2713.50. Standard & Poor’s 500 Index rose nearly 12 points to 1496.95. Over in the bond market, the 10- year note lost 10/32 to par and 10/32, putting the yield at 4.21 percent.
Big board volume leader, Citigroup (C) on nearly 10 million shares, edging up $0.74. Citigroup, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase have scrapped efforts to create a massive liquidity conduit aimed at aiding troubled structured investment vehicles, SIVs, they’re called, saying that such a fund is no longer necessary.
General Electric (GE) $0.39 gain. As you heard, it’s acquiring Merrill’s capital unit.
Then Merrill Lynch (MER) itself closed down $1.64, but that big capital infusion news early in the day had the stock as high as $58.37 a share, then it backed down.
Coeur d'Alene (CDE) down $0.18. The company said it’s now completed the acquisition of Bolnisi Gold and Palmarejo Silver.
Bank of America (BAC) in there with a $0.36 gain. We just mentioned what they were doing.
Pfizer (PFE) a $0.09 gain there.
And then Time Warner (TWX) a $0.32 advance.
Wells Fargo & Co (WFC) edged up $0.83.
Washington Mutual (WM) down $0.11.
JPMorgan Chase (JPM) $0.72 gain, tenth in volume.
Alcoa (AA) moved up $0.66. The company’s going to sell its packaging and consumer businesses to New Zealand’s Rank Group Limited. The price, $2.7 billion in cash.
Fedex (FDX) down $2.16, didn’t have a good day. First the IRS says the company’s ground unit owes it $319 million in back taxes and then the company said it’s received a grand jury subpoena regarding a Department of Justice probe into possible anticompetitive practices in the international air freight forwarding business.
Then we see Target (TGT) moving up $1.79. A hedge fund called Pershing Square said it boosted its stake from 9.6 to 10 percent. Separately, Target said December same store sales are flat.
Quinsa (Quilmes) adr (LQU). This is a brewing company and AmBev plans to buy all of the American depository shares that it doesn’t already own and the price will be $81.25 a share.
Giant Interactive (GA), you can see that stock just went public in November. The price at that time was $15.50, but the Chinese online game developer is going to buy back up to $200 million of its ADSs (ph) from time to time.
First Horizon Intl (FHN) down $1.21. The company’s going to increase its loan loss provision to about $150 million. Meanwhile, the Janey Montgomery Scott brokerage downgraded it to just a "neutral" rating.
Apple (AAPL) topped the active list, moving up $4.89.
Research in Motion (RIMM) down $0.65.
Google (GOOG) was up just over $4.
Microsoft (MSFT) $0.52 gain.
Yahoo! (YHOO) edged up $0.04 a share.
Then Intel (INTC) $0.35 gain.
First Solar (FSLR) up $5.64. "Barron’s" said this on the best gainer in the NASDAQ so far this year, up 723 percent.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) $0.12 gain.
Similar rise in Baidu.com (BIDU).
Then Oracle (ORCL) with a nickel advance at $22.76.
MTC Technologies (MTCT) up $5.72. BEA Systems will acquire the company for $24 a share in cash.
And Fuelcell Energy (FCEL) $2.82 loss after the company got a smaller than expected energy project from the state of Connecticut.
And those are the stocks in the news tonight.
