Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Friday, January 18, 2008
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PAUL KANGAS: Stocks on Wall Street opened higher in a technical bounce back from yesterday's plunge. The early buying also came on strong earnings from two Dow components, IBM last night and General Electric this morning. We'll detail those GE results in a moment. An hour into trading, the Dow was up 140 points and the NASDAQ up 31 points. Buyers backed away as they mulled President Bush's stimulus plan. The selling continued into the close, with few investors willing to make strong commitments ahead of the long holiday weekend. So the Dow Industrial Average closed off 59.91 points at 12,099.30. This week, the index fell in four of the five sessions for an overall loss of 507 points or 4 percent. The NASDAQ Composite lost 6.88 to 2,340.02 today. The index also fell in the past four sessions, falling a total of 99.92 points or 4 percent this week. Standard & Poor's 500 tumbled 8.06 to 1,325.19 today. This index was the hardest hit this week, down 75.83 points or 5.41 percent overall. In the bond market, the 10-year note slipped 1/32 to 105 2/32, putting the yield at 3.63 percent. Topping the active list on the big board was not Citigroup for a change. It was none other than Sprint Nextel (S) on 55 3/4 million shares, losing $2.87. The company said due to the loss of subscribers, it's cutting 4,000 jobs and closing 8 percent of its retail outlets. Then came Citigroup (C) a $0.49 drop today. It's off 16 percent for this week alone. Of course, Tuesday the company reported a huge $2 a share loss, cut its dividend 41 percent. The stock now is at its lowest level in over nine years.
General Electric (GE) up $1.10 on those earnings you heard about, up 4 percent. Citigroup repeated a "buy" today.
Bank of America (BAC) a $0.94 drop.
JPMorgan Chase (JPM) fell $0.45.
Pfizer (PFE) a $0.46 loss.
AT&T (T) down $1.19.
ExxonMobil (XOM) up $1.17.
Ford Motor Co (F) rose $0.16.
Wells Fargo & Co (WFC) $0.65 drop.
American Intl Group (AIG) down $2.22. Former CEO Hank Greenberg and its CV Starr Company have hired Perella Weinberg Partners to advise on what to do with the Starr Corporation's 12 percent stake in AIG.
IBM (IBM) up $2.30. After the close yesterday as we reported, fourth quarter earnings $2.80, $0.20 above the Street estimate. Today Deutsche Bank repeated a "buy" and boosted its price target to $130 a share.
General Motors (GM) up $0.68. Deutsche Bank today made positive comments on the company's turnaround plan and repeated a "buy" with a $45 a share target on GM.
Schlumberger Ltd (SLB), the big oil drilling firm, down almost $3 today, traded as low as $72.30. Fourth quarter earnings were higher, $1.11 versus $0.92 last year, but that was $0.02 below the Street estimate and the company itself was unhappy about its profit margins during that period.
Alliance Data Systems (ADS) up $9.11. The company's acquisition by Blackstone Group appears to be a go.
Under Armour (UA), a $9.05 loss. The sportswear manufacturer sees first half earnings in 2008 of only $0.03 to $0.05 a share and Wachovia today downgraded it from "outperform" to "market perform."
Amcol Intl (ACO) a $5.87 tumble. Fourth quarter earnings down to $0.35 from $0.39 a year ago and that's despite a 25 percent rise in sales.
Allied Capital (ALD) down only $0.42 on the close, but traded as low as $18.20 after the Stiefel Nicholas brokerage started coverage with a "sell" recommendation.
Emcor Group (EME) up $1.33. The company sees 2007 operating earnings in the upper range of its $1.75 to $1.80 guidance and maybe even better than that.
Sealed Air (SEE) up $1.45. Wachovia upgraded it from "market perform" to "out perform."
And MBIA (MBI) the bond insurer, down another $0.67. Today Standard & Poor's downgraded it from "hold" to "sell," Citigroup from "buy" down to a "hold."
Apple (AAPL) topped the NASDAQ actives, up $0.47.
Followed by Google (GOOG) $0.54 drop there.
Microsoft (MSFT) down a dime.
Baidu.com (BIDU) rebounding $8.05.
Intel (INTC) a $0.33 loss, fifth in volume on NASDAQ.
Research in Motion (RIMM) up $1.55.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) a $0.03 loss.
First Solar (FSLR) up $8.68 a share.
Qualcomm (QCOM) down $0.71.
And then Oracle (ORCL) with a $0.17 gain, tenth in volume.
Xilinx (XLNX) up $2.39. Higher third quarter earnings out today, $0.35 versus $0.26 last year and that was $0.03 better than the Street was expecting.
And then Performance Food Group Co (PFGC) had a good performance today, up $7.64. The news here, Blackstone Group and Wellspring Capital Management will acquire this company for $34.50 a share.
And those are the stocks in the news tonight.
