Paul Kangas Stocks in the News
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
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PAUL KANGAS: In the wake of yesterday's drubbing on Wall Street, cautious bargain buyers gave stocks a modest lift this morning. An upbeat outlook from Dupont helped the Dow rise by 75 points by 11 a.m., with the NASDAQ Index up 14 points. The early upturn had trouble gaining traction after that recession prediction by Goldman Sachs. So by noontime, the Dow and the NASDAQ indices were off single digits. In the absence of follow- through selling, however, an oversold rally developed and led by the financials and that gave the market a positive close. The Dow Industrial Average ended up 146.24 at 12,735.31. NASDAQ Composite up 34.04 at 2,474.55. Standard & Poor's 500 Index rose 18.94, closing at 1,409.13. Over in the bond market, the 10-year note fell 12/32 to 103 15/32, putting the yield at 3.83 percent.
Familiar name at the top of the active list, today 34 million shares traded in Citigroup (C). The stock up $0.37, although Morgan Stanley forecasts that Citi will cut its quarterly dividend from $0.54 to $0.30 in the second quarter and Morgan Stanley also widened its estimate for a fourth quarter loss for Citicorp from $0.56 in the red to $0.88 in the red.
Then came Countrywide Financial (CFC) down $0.43. As you heard, the company's December loan funding was up 1 percent, but that's still 45 percent below what it was a year ago.
That didn't help Washington Mutual (WM) stock, which fell $0.39.
Ford Motor Co (F) a $0.06 drop. Goldman Sachs cut 2008 earning estimates for Ford by 60 percent, down to only $0.20 a share.
AT&T (T) down another $0.07, says its consumer business is again softening a bit.
Pfizer (PFE) moved up $0.46.
Then Qwest Communications (Q) down $0.23 a share.
General Electric (GE) bucked the trend, up $0.42.
A $0.33 gain in Bank of America (BAC).
Advanced Micro (AMD), tenth in volume, down $0.47 a share.
Dupont (DD) which is a Dow stock, helped that average, up $2.10 today. The company sees 2007 earnings at the upper end of its previous forecast of $3.15 to $3.20 a share and that's thanks to strong foreign sales because of the weak dollar. The company also boosted its 2008 earnings estimate by $0.03 to $0.04 to as much as $3.55 a share.
Humana (HUM) did well today, up $3.93. It reaffirmed its 2008 earnings guidance of $5.30 to $5.50 a share.
And Robbins & Myers (RBN), a manufacturer of industrial products, posted good first quarter earnings, $0.80, up from $0.62 a year ago, $0.13 above the Street estimate. The company boosting its dividend 15 percent and also set a two for one stock split, nice combination.
MGM Mirage (MGM) up $3.79. The company and Dubai World will launch a 10 million share tender offer and pay no less than $75 a share, no more than $80 a share.
Oneok (OKE), the national natural gas distributor up $4.43. The company boosted its 2007 earnings guidance from $2.72 at best to $2.79 a share at best and sees 2008 earnings around $3.15.
MBIA (MB) a $0.55 drop. It's going to issue $1 billion of surplus notes and cut its quarterly dividend from $0.34 to $0.13 and the stock traded as low as $11.11 today, but Standard & Poor's upgraded it from "sell" to "hold" and that helped cut that loss.
Apple (AAPL) topped the active list, coming back $8.15.
Google (GOOG), good day, $21.52 gain.
Research in Motion (RIMM) up $2.11.
Baidu.com (BIDU) up - down $1.11.
And then Microsoft (MSFT) a $0.99 gain. The company is bidding $1.2 billion for enterprise search company called Fast Search Transfers, a Norwegian firm.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) $0.37 gain.
$0.49 rise in Intel (INTC).
First Solar (FSLR) up $3.75.
Garmin Ltd (GRMN) down $4.21, traded as low as $67.50 today. The digital map maker was downgraded by Deutsche Bank from "buy" to "hold" on concern about increasing competition.
And then Amazon.com (AMZN), tenth in volume, down $2.66.
And finally, Apollo Group (APOL) jumped $11.05 on stronger than expected first quarter profits of $0.88, $0.15 above analysts' estimates.
