Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Thursday, February 07, 2008
|
|
|
|
JEFF YASTINE: Investors looked past the retail sales disappointments and focused on growth and valuations today. The Dow's early 70 point loss was quickly erased as buyers bought shares of Wal-Mart, Coke and other steady growers. Same for the NASDAQ where Cisco Systems saw a 1 percent rebound despite its cautious sales outlook we told you about last night. The Dow advanced 130 points in the afternoon before selling whittled down those gains. So the blue chips closed up 46.9 at 12,247. The NASDAQ Composite advancing 14.28 to end at 2293.03 and the S&P 500 adding 10.46 to finish at 1336.91. In the bond market, a (INAUDIBLE) $9 billion auction of 30-year bonds the worst in four years and profit taking kept Treasuries weak, the 10-year falling 1 12/32 to 97 24/32 and driving the yield up to 3.77 percent.
Citigroup (C) starting our list off tonight, falling $0.22.
And then Ford Motor Co (F) dropping $0.14.
Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) off $1.66. That company slated to report quarterly results on the 19th of the month.
Bank of America (BAC) bouncing back $1.04. The firm is boosting the interest rate it charges credit card customers in an effort to help boost revenues and the banking giant also revealing today that it now owns a 7 percent stake in the bond insurer, Ambac Financial.
And General Electric (GE) rising a fraction.
JPMorgan Chase (JPM) gaining $1.39. CEO Jamie Diamond sees the sub- prime and credit market crisis winding down and thinks it might be time to start looking at the distressed debt of some of the more troubled companies.
EMC Corp (EMC) dropping $0.20.
Wal-Mart Stores (WMT) gaining $1.01. Slow gift card redemptions as we told you a moment ago hurting its January sales numbers, but investors looking for values today. They found it with Wal-Mart.
Qwest Communications (Q) down $0.28.
Pfizer (PFE) rising a fraction.
JC Penney Co (JCP) rising nearly $4. The decline in January sales not as bad as investors feared, about 1.9 percent and Penney's thinks they can still meet their fourth quarter forecast.
Saks (SKS) gaining $1.42. This upscale retailer logging a 4 percent gain in same store sales last month.
And Family Dollar Stores (FDO) benefiting as well. They perked up more than $2 after sales declines were smaller than expected.
Airlines getting a lift from continued talk of industry consolidation. Continental Air (CAL) climbing $1.67 with published reports saying merger talks are heating up with United Airlines parent UAL climbing $1.88.
Pepsico (PEP) advancing more than $3, more than $3.50 by the way. The stock bouncing off a six-month low on belief the soft drink maker will be able to meet its profit projections this year.
Then Gartner (IT) gaining nearly $2.50. Its profits rose 72 percent in the fourth quarter.
Intercontinental Exchange (ICL) jumping more than $14. All the exchange stocks doing quite well today. JPMorgan called the shares on Intercontinental a compelling value and downplayed the antitrust concerns raised yesterday by the Justice Department about the trade clearing (ph) operations at the major futures exchanges. CME shares by the way advancing more than $42.
Aetna (AET) dropping $1.32 Profits there rising a modest 3 percent and enrollment forecasts were raised, but investors disappointed that the executives didn't boost their earnings guidance at the same time.
Prudential Financial (PRU) dropping more than $6. Fourth quarter earnings falling and 2008 forecast were revised lower as well.
On the NASDAQ, Apple (AAPL) dropping $0.76.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) rising $0.30 despite the company's disappointing sales forecast last night.
Microsoft (MSFT) dropping $0.40.
Google (GOOG) rising more than $3. They'll be showing their so-called G phone mobile device to journalists at a conference in Spain next week.
And Research in Motion (RIMM) advancing $0.85. Cisco, excuse me, Citigroup sees RIMM's popularity in the U.S. being a big problem if the economy slips into recession.
baidu.com (BIDU) rebounding more than $2.
Intel (INTC) advancing $0.13.
First Solar (FSLR) though dropping $6.
Yahoo! (YHOO) rising $0.47.
And Qualcomm (QCOM) advancing $1.29.
Akamai Tech (AKAM) rising more than $2. They report strong earnings of $0.41 a share. That beat estimates.
And then Corporate Executive Board (EXBO) tumbling almost $12. They missed their earnings targets for the fourth quarter and see lower than expected profits for all of 2008 as well.
And those are our stocks in the news tonight.
