Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Friday, January 25, 2008
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PAUL KANGAS: Wall Street opened with moderate gains nurtured by solid results from Caterpillar and Honeywell and those upbeat earnings from Microsoft we told you about last night. The Dow rose 75 points at the outset of trading with the NASDAQ up 24 points. The rally lost its luster and turned into a rather steep sell off this afternoon on reports some major European banks were having problems. All this after Societe Generale's trading fraud bombshell yesterday. A jump in oil futures also sent the market skidding. The Dow Industrial Average closed off 171.44 points at 12,207.17. In this four-day week, it fell twice, rose twice, had a net gain of 107.87 points. The NASDAQ Composite fell 34.72 to 2326.20 today and it also rose twice and fell twice this week and it lost 13.82 points overall. Standard & Poor's 500 dropped 21.46, ending at 3030.61 today. It gained 5.42 points for the week. Over in the bond market, the 10- year note jumped 1 11/32 to 105 23/32, putting the yield at 3.55 percent.
Once again the big board volume leader today on 32.8 million shares, Citigroup (C) down $0.69. The financial sector was weak today on those possible problems with European banks. Then Bank of America (BAC) down $0.42.
Pfizer (PFE) fell $0.44.
Motorola (MOT) kicking back $0.60 after a big loss yesterday.
General Electric (GE) was down $0.65.
Merck & Co (MRK) lost $1.77. The FDA is reviewing the company's Vitorin cholesterol drug because of its failure to work better than generic drugs.
Ford Motor Co (F) slipped in there with a $0.32 gain.
And then Schering-Plough (SGP) down $1.15. Schering is Merck's partner in developing Vitorin which as you just heard, is under FDA review.
Wells Fargo & Co (WFC) $0.50 loss there.
And then EMC Corp (EMC) with a gain of $0.17 a share. Once again we apologize for not being able to present you with charts this evening because of technical difficulties.
Caterpillar (CAT) however was up $0.68. Fourth quarter earnings $1.50, up from $1.32 last year, in line with estimates. The company reaffirmed its 2008 earnings guidance, says it can earn as much as $6.18 a share. That would be up 15 percent from this year.
Honeywell Intl (HON) up $2.05. Earnings, $0.91 for the fourth quarter, versus $0.72 last year. The company sees $0.80 to $0.83 in the first quarter and that would top Street estimates.
Then Home Depot (HD) down $1.03. The company has scrapped a plan to buy the Utah bank called Interbanks USA.
Harley-Davidson (HOG) down $2.16. Fourth quarter earnings dropped to $0.78 from $0.97 a year ago. Revenues fell 7 3/4 percent. Standard & Poor's repeated a "sell" on HOG, hog as you see the trading symbol.
Eastman Chemical (EMN) had a good day, up $4.56. Fourth quarter earnings, $1.21 up from $1.12 last year. That was $0.10 better than the Street consensus and the company says its earnings will double by the year 2012.
Perkinelmer (PKI) up $3.98. They health services firm came in with second quarter earnings of $0.45, $0.02 above the consensus and up from $0.34 last year. Revenues up a respectable 20 percent over that period.
Tempur-pdic intl (TPX), the mattress company, down $5.94. Fourth quarter earnings, $0.52, a penny below the Street estimate and revenue came in on a shortfall. The Stiefel Nicholas brokerage cut its price target from $42 down to $34 a share.
City National (CVN) down $7.25. Fourth quarter earnings, $0.96, down from last year's $1.19. Bear Stearns downgraded the stock from "out perform" to "peer perform."
And then Gold Fields Ltd (GFI) off $1.55. The company has suspended all South African gold mining operations due to a power shortage in South Africa.
A new issue today RiskMetrics Group (RMG) and this market pretty risky coming public, but this one did one. It's a risk management advisor, 14 million shares offered at $17.50, opened at $21, the high of the day $24.45, closed very near the high of the day.
Apple (AAPL) topped the active list down $5.59 on NASDAQ.
Microsoft (MSFT) $0.31 loss.
Baidu.com (BIDU) fell $7.73.
Google (GOOG) off $8.09.
Research in Motion (RIMM) fell $3.95.
Then Intel (INTC) $0.69 drop there.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) fell $0.91.
First Solar (FSLR) $0.18 drop.
And a gainer, Amgen (AMGN) up $3.02. Fourth quarter earnings for Amgen $1, up from last year's $0.90 a share.
Then finally, Qualcomm (QCOM) down $0.41 a share. That was tenth in NASDAQ volume.
Sunopta (STKL) losing $3.51. The Canadian organic food company cut its 2007 earnings guidance from $0.40 a share at best to only about $0.12.
And those are the stocks in the news tonight.
