Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
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PAUL KANGAS: Wall Street's blue chips got a boost this morning from that stronger than expected rise in durable goods orders which overshadowed sharply lower earnings from U.S. Steel. Just before noon, the Dow was sporting an 80-point gain, however the tech index in the NASDAQ was up only four points. The market held its early gains with the help of solid earnings from companies like Lexmark, Crane and Burlington Northern along with hopes for a big Fed rate cut tomorrow and that triggered more late blue chip gains. The Dow Industrial Average closed up 96.41 points at 12,480.30. The NASDAQ Composite up 8.15 to 2358.06. Standard & Poor's 500 Index was up 8.33 at 1362.30. Over in the bond market, the 10-year note fell 27/32 to 104 21/32, putting the yield at 3.68 percent. Big board volume leader on 28.1 million shares, EMC Corp (EMC) losing $1.02. Fourth quarter earnings were higher, $0.24 versus $0.18 a year ago, $0.02 above the Street forecast, but the company's estimate of only 13 percent revenue growth this year was below the Street forecast. Also EMC owns a majority of VMWare whose stock plummeted today, as we'll see shortly.0 Citigroup (C) in there with a $0.26 gain.
Then JPMorgan Chase (JPM) closed up $1.88. This morning it was trading as low as $44.75 and then denied a rumor that it'll post a huge lost on derivatives, snapped right back.
General Electric (GE) $0.04 gain.
Bank of America (BAC) a $0.74 gain. The company said despite a larger than expected $0.79 per share loss from Countrywide Financial in the fourth quarter, it still will proceed with the buyout of Countrywide.
Pfizer (PFE) a $0.19 gain.
AT&T (T) up $1.49. The company and Yahoo! renewed a broadband access contract. Yahoo! earnings were out after the close and I'll get to that shortly.
Ford Motor Co (F) a $0.02 gain there.
Wells Fargo & Co (WFC) edged up $0.80.
And Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), tenth in volume, $0.42 drop.
We again apologize for the absence of charts, but our computer glitch continued today. US Steel Corp (X) tumbling $7.49. The story here, sharply lower earnings, fourth quarter, $0.29, down from $2.50 last year. Sales fell 20 percent. However, big steel is going to boost its quarterly dividend from $0.20 to $0.25 a share.
3M Co (MMM) $0.58 gain. Fourth quarter earnings excluding items, $1.19, up from $1.04 last year, $0.02 above the Street estimate. Sales were up a better than expected 7.3 percent.
Pepsi Bottling (PBG) down $3.78. Fourth quarter earnings dropped only $0.35 versus $0.55 a year ago and that was on flat worldwide case volume.
Vmware (WMW), there you see it, tumbling $28.13, closed near the low of the day. After the close yesterday, it had sharply higher earnings of $0.26 versus $0.04 a year ago, but a shortfall in revenue and disappointing 15 percent growth forecast really had investors rather unhappy and Bear Stearns today cut its price target from $132 to $106 a share. And as you heard, EMC is a majority holder of VMware.
Frontier Oil (FTO) up $4.89. Goldman Sachs upgraded it from "neutral" to "buy."
And then Valero Energy (VLO) up $5.68. Fourth quarter earnings of $1.02, well down from $1.74 a year ago, but believe it or not, $0.40 above the Street consensus.
Municipal Mortgage & Equity (MMA) tumbling $8.01. The company is cutting its dividend distribution from its previous outlay of $0.525 per share down to $0.33 and the company said it's also late in restating some of its financials from years past.
Apple (AAPL) topped the active list up $1.53.
Followed by Google (GOOG) down $5.46.
Microsoft (MSFT) a $0.12 loss there.
Baidu.com (BIDU) lost $20.61.
But First Solar (FSLR) up nearly $15 a share.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) a $0.04 loss.
Followed by Research in Motion (RIMM) down $0.82.
Intel (INTC) $0.21 gain.
Yahoo! (YHOO) closed up $0.03. After the close, fourth quarter earnings, $0.15 versus $0.19 a year ago, but that was $0.04 above the Street consensus. However the CEO as you said, said he sees head winds for the economy this year and he will lay off 1,000 employees. In after hours trading, Yahoo! was down over $2 a share from this price that you see.
Amazon.com (AMZN) fell $1.87. That was tenth in volume.
Jetblue Airways (JBLU) gained $1. Fourth quarter loss of $0.02 versus earnings of $0.10 a year ago, but operating revenues were up 17 percent. Standard & Poor's upgraded the stock from "hold" to "buy."
And Quintana Maritime (QMAR) up $5.13. Excel Maritime will acquire this company for about $26 a share in cash and stock on about a half and a half basis.
Those are the stocks in the news tonight.
