Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Thursday, January 31, 2008
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PAUL KANGAS: Wall Street opened broadly lower on concerns over the beleaguered bond insurers and the report of 69,000 new weekly jobless benefit claims which raised fears of a recession. The Dow fell 130 points after just a half hour of trading as the NASDAQ Composite lost 18 points. The market began to recover after as Suzanne Pratt just reported, MBIA reassured investors it had sufficient capital. With the financial and home building sectors leading the way, the market rallied sharply to an impressive closing gain. The Dow Jones Industrial Average soared 207.53 points, ending at 12,650.36. The NASDAQ Composite jumped 40.86 to end at 2389.86. Standard & Poor's 500 rose 22.74 to 1378.55. In the bond market, the 10-year note rose 12/32 to 105 1/32, putting the yield at 3.60 percent.
The top of the activity board was Citigroup (C) trading 43.4 million shares, edging $0.67 higher.
Followed Bank of America (BAC) which was in the fairly strong financial group late today.
General Electric (GE) $0.42 gain there.
JPMorgan Chase (JPM) $0.20 advance.
And then Pfizer (PFE) with a $0.29 gain.
Wal-Mart Stores (WMT) had a nice gain of $1.72 today.
And Wells Fargo & Co (WFC) did well, up $1.25.
Ford Motor Co (F) down $0.11.
AT&T (T) moved up $1.14.
Then came ExxonMobil (XOM) gaining $1.12 Exxon's earnings due out tomorrow. Once again we apologize for not having our regular charts, but we're working on it.
Procter & Gamble (PG) up $0.86. Second quarter earnings, $0.98, versus $0.84 a year ago, a penny above the Street estimate. Sales up 9 percent.
Colgate Palmolive (CL) down or I should say up $3.50. Fourth quarter operating earnings $0.91 versus $0.78 last year, $0.02 above the Street estimate. Sales up 13 percent.
Then CVS Caremark (CVS) the big drug store chain, up $3.05. Fourth quarter earnings adjusted $0.58, up from $0.52 a year ago. Sales were up 3.4 percent. Standard & Poor's repeated a "strong buy" on CVS stock.
Motorola (MOT) $0.24 closing gain. After the close, the company said it's exploring the separation of its mobile devices operations from the rest of the company to enhance shareholder value. In after hours trading, Motorola I saw as high as $13 a share.
Mastercard (MA) in there with a $18 gain. First quarter earnings excluding one-time items, $0.89. That was $0.16 above the Street consensus.
And Owens-Illinois (OI) up $7.05. Fourth quarter earnings of exactly $1, way up $0.19 a year ago. Revenues up 15 percent.
Marathon Oil (MRO) dropped $4.06. Fourth quarter adjusted earnings dropped to $0.70 versus $1.19 last year. That was $0.16 below the Wall Street estimate.
Burger King (BKT) up $2.19, nice move there. Second quarter earnings were nice, $0.36 versus $0.28 a year ago and the company expects to exceed its initial 2008 earnings guidance. Standard & Poor's today repeated a "strong buy" on Burger King stock.
Mattel (MAT) had a good day, up $2.07. Fourth quarter earnings, $0.96, up from $0.76 a year ago, revenues up nearly 4 percent.
Then we see Snap-On (SNA) up $5.28. Fourth quarter earnings there, $0.98, up from $0.64 last year. Sales up 14 percent.
And Pulte Homes (PHM) up $2.77 despite reporting a huge fourth quarter loss of $3.54 versus only a $0.03 loss a year ago. Revenues dropped 34 percent but Standard & Poor's narrowed its 2008 loss estimate on Pulte and that seemed to help the stock.
Topping the active list on NASDAQ, Google (GOOG) up $16.03 in the regular way close, but after the close, you heard those earnings were a penny shy of estimates. I saw the stock down over $46 from this level.
Apple (AAPL) $3.18 gain.
Amazon.com (AMZN) up $3.49. After the close yesterday, higher earnings, but today the company said it's going to be Audible Incorporated for $300 million or $11.50 a share. Audible stock was up $2.09 to close at $11.42.
Microsoft (MSFT) in there with a $0.40 gain.
Baidu.com (BIDU) did well, up $20.56.
Research in Motion (RIMM) edged $0.09 higher.
Intel (INTC) $0.41 gain.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) $0.14 advance.
Qualcomm (QCOM) $2.14 advance.
And then Oracle (ORCL), tenth in volume, was up $0.28 a share.
Tivo (TIVO) gained $1.97. The company won a patent infringement suit against Echostar. Echostar will pay Tivo almost $74 million.
And Cadence Design (CDNS) a $5.01 drop there. Fourth quarter earnings out after the close yesterday were good, $0.41 versus $0.16, but the company's outlook is disappointing since it's forecasting a loss in the first quarter, a loss of $0.04 to $0.06 a share.
Those are the stocks in the news tonight.
