Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
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PAUL KANGAS: Very light volume on the sell-off encouraged buyers this afternoon, lifting the major averages to small gains at the final bell. The Dow Industrial Average closed up 2.36 points at 13,551.69. NASDAQ Composite was up 10.91 ending at 2,724.41. Standard & Poor's 500 Index edged up 1.21 to close at 1,497.66. Over in the bond market, the 10-year note fell 18/32 to 99 23/32, putting the yield at 4.28 percent.
Michael O'Higgins, our regular "Market Monitor" guest on this program named his 10 stocks the dogs of the Dow today and one of them was Citigroup (C) which moved down $0.53.
Ford Motor Co (F) was not, but moved up $0.14.
General Electric (GE) is considered a dog of the Dow by Mr. O'Higgins, up $0.02.
Then AT&T (T) also a dog of the Dow, $0.80 gain.
JPMorgan Chase (JPM) was up $0.11, fifth in volume. These dogs are paying good dividends, the highest dividends of the Dow 30 incidentally.
Pfizer (PFE) is one of them, down $0.13.
And so is Home Depot (HD) with a $0.02 loss today.
Elsewhere, Countrywide Financial (CFC) rose a dime.
Bank of America (BAC) $0.02 gain there.
And ExxonMobil (XOM) on those higher oil futures, up $1.15.
Target (TGT) down $1.31. The company said its December same store sales are likely to be either up or down only about 1 percent from its previous forecast. That news had a negative impact on the whole retailing sector.
JC Penney Co (JCP), Macy*s (M), Nordstrom (JWN), Sears Holdings (SHLD) and Wal-Mart Stores (WMT) all showing red ink today.
Bear Stearns (BSC) up $0.49. Billionaire Joseph Lewis (ph) disclosed that he boosted his stake in the company from 7 percent to 9.6 percent.
And Toyota Motors (TM) up $1.62. The company said its 2008 vehicle sales target had 9.85 million vehicles and if met, it would break GM's old record of 9.55 million sold in one year.
Hitachi Ltd (HIT) a $2.03 gain. The company received FDA clearance for its PROBEAT proton beam therapy system to treat cancer patients.
Then the big bond insurance company, MBIA (MBI) up $2.21. Davis Selected (ph) Advisors, a private equity firm, said it owned a 5.1 percent stake in the company.
AAR (AIR), which is in aerospace components, up $1.61. Analysts were impressed by last week's strong second quarter earnings which showed good profit margin improvement as well.
Arena Resources (ARD) jumped $2.46. Analysts said that stock is up on short covering today.
And then Sallie Mae SLM Corp (SLM) closed up just $0.07. After the close, the company said it plans the sale of $2.5 billion in stock and convertible debt. In after hours trading, I saw the stock as low as $20.40 a share.
Apple (AAPL) topped NASDAQ's most active, closing up $0.15 and traded at $200.96 during the day. That is a record intra-day high.
Research in Motion (RIMM) up $0.96.
Google (GOOG) up $10.11.
Baidu.com (BIDU) up $19.09.
Microsoft (MSFT) a $0.03 gain.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) down $0.34.
But First Solar (FSLR) up $8.87. The solar group was very strong today and of course it's always rather volatile to say the least.
Intel (INTC) a $0.14 gain.
Oracle (ORCL) moved up $0.24, had good earnings out last week.
And then Amazon.com (AMZN) with a gain of $1.84. The company said as you heard earlier, that 2007 holiday season was the best it's ever had.
Over on the American exchange finally, Immtech Pharmaceuticals (IMM) plunged $2.97 a share on news it is putting its pafuramidine (ph) program which is used to treat pneumonia, putting it on hold. Down went the stock.
