Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Thursday, January 10, 2008
|
|
|
|
PAUL KANGAS: Tepid retail sales figures underscored recession concerns and got Wall Street off to a lower start, as the Dow dipped 54 points at the outset of trading while the NASDAQ Composite fell 17 points. Helping the market rebound were huge gains in the airline stocks on merger rumors, which we'll detail later and then there was that big jump in Countrywide Financial stock on the Bank of America takeover speculation. Fed chief Bernanke's speech and a drop in oil futures helped the market close near the day's best level. The Dow Industrial Average gained 117.78 at 12,853.09. The NASDAQ Composite ended up 13.97 at 2,488.52. Standard & Poor's 500 Index rose 11.20 to 1,420.33. Over in the bond market, the 10- year note fell 16/32 to 102 30/32, putting the yield at 3.89 percent.
New York exchange volume leader on 41 1/2 million shares, Countrywide Financial (CFC) closing up $2.63, a 51.4 percent gain on those rumors that Bank America might make a buyout bid. The stock traded as high as $8.91 today. Citigroup (C) slipped in there with a $0.62 gain.
Bank of America (BAC) itself, the rumored suitor of Countrywide, up $0.56.
Washington Mutual (WM) on the Countrywide news moved up $1.82.
Ford Motor Co (F) $0.18 gain there.
Moving along in the active list, JPMorgan Chase (JPM) up $1.07.
And then General Electric (GE) a $0.12 gainer.
Pfizer (PFE) moved up $0.16.
Wells Fargo & Co (WFC) an $0.87 advance.
Advanced Micro (AMD) up $0.43 on news that the New York State attorney general is probing whether the company's chief rival Intel coerced its customers to exclude Advanced Micro Device products.
American Express (AXP) closed down $0.16 in regular trading. After the close, the company cut its fourth quarter earnings estimate from $0.87 which was the Street level estimate all the way down to $0.70 a share. In after hours trading, the stock dropped nearly $4. I saw it at $45.33.
Boeing (BA) up $2.06, bucking the trend in some of the retail stocks. Today Credit Suisse said that fears of another delay in delivery of 787 Dreamliners, those delays are far overdone. The stock went up nicely.
And then came the airline stocks on those merger rumors, big gains for all of them, some of the best in years on a one-day basis and as you heard, Delta might be talking with Northwest or UAL and all of them had big advances today.
United Parcel Service (UPS) up $2.95. The board has approved a change in the company's capital structure, which will increase the stock buyback authorization from $2 billion, all the way up to $10 billion.
The Men's Wearhouse (MW) tumbling $7.60. The company cut its fourth quarter earnings estimate from a high of $0.48 to only $0.18 at best. The Street estimate was $0.46, a major drop in the stock.
AnnTaylor Stores (ANN) another weak retailer, down $3.65. December same store sales there down 9.4 percent and Raymond James financial brokerage downgraded it from "out perform" to just a "market perform" rating.
Eastman Chemical (EMN) up $3.95. The company sees fourth quarter earnings above the high-end Street estimate of $1.06 per share.
And then Barnes & Noble (BKS), the book seller, tumbling $6.58. The company cut its earnings estimate by $0.10 for the year down to $1.76 at best. The company blamed poor music sales.
NASDAQ topped the NASDAQ active list Apple (AAPL) did I mean, down $1.38.
Then Google (GOOG) off $6.47.
Research in Motion (RIMM) up $2.11.
Microsoft (MSFT) an $0.11 drop. There's speculation the company might make an $8 billion bid for Swiss-based Logic Tech International. That makes computer peripheral products.
Baidu.com (BIDU) down $4.56, fifth in NASDAQ volume.
Intel (INTC) $0.21 loss.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) no change there.
First Solar (FSLR) plunging $8.28.
Yahoo! (YHOO) up $1.53.
And Amazon.com (AMZN) was down $0.96.
Elsewhere, Illumina (ILMN) up $9.57 on news the company settled a patent dispute with Attymetrix. Attymetrix will get $94 million, but no royalties from Illumina.
And those are the stocks in the news tonight.
