Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
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PAUL KANGAS: Stocks on Wall Street opened higher and stayed that way on that rise in January retail sales when a drop was expected. Better than expected results from Coca-Cola also helped the Dow jump about 100 points early on while the NASDAQ Composite rose 30 points. The market pulled back a bit during mid-session as buyers took a breather, but they came on strong again in late trading on growing confidence that recession worries have been overdone. The Dow Industrial Average closed up 178.83 points at 12,552.24. The NASDAQ Composite up 53.89 ending at 2373.93. Standard & Poor's 500 Iindex gained 18.35 points to 1367.21. In the bond market, the 10-year note fell 19/32 to 98 2/32, putting the yield at 3.73 percent.
Big board volume leader as it so frequently is, Citigroup (C) on 21 3/4 million shares today, moving up $0.13.
Followed by General Electric (GE) $0.61 gain there.
EMC Corp (EMC) edged $0.07 higher.
Time Warner (TWX) a $0.36 gain.
AT&T (T) had a decent day, up $1.16 a share.
Pfizer (PFE) a $0.06 gain there.
$0.51 advance in Bank of America (BAC).
Wells Fargo & Co (WFC) up $0.55.
Ford Motor Co (F) gained $0.12.
And completely this sea up upsides, JPMorgan Chase (JPM) $0.79 gain, all on the upside in the 10 most actives.
ExxonMobil (XOM) gained $1.11. The U.S. government is backing the company in an effort to win fair compensation from Venezuela for assets it seized. Venezuela has stopped oil shipments to ExxonMobil in retaliation and the battle goes on.
Coca-Cola Co (KO) $0.53 loss despite fourth quarter adjusted earnings of $0.58, $0.03 above the Street estimate. Unit case volume was up 5 percent.
Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) another Dow stock, up $1.17. The company signed a seven-year $675 million deal to provide services to Unilever. That's the big Anglo-Dutch company.
Moving along we see United Health Group (UNM) $1.30 loss there. As you heard, the New York State attorney general is investigating the health insurance industry over deceptive practices. The whole sector was weak was on that news today, like Aetna (AET) and Humana (HUM) also on the downside.
Deere & Co (DE) $0.94, big earnings though, up 54 percent from last year. First quarter, $0.83 up from $0.52 and a nickel above the Street estimate. But the company sees second quarter earnings below the Street consensus and that's what hurt the stock.
Acco Brands (ABO) which is into office products, up $2.13. Fourth quarter earnings excluding one-time items, $0.66, up from $0.50 last year. That's a 33 percent rise from a year ago.
And Jones Apparel (JNY) gained $1.70. Fourth quarter earnings excluding items, $0.09 a share, $0.02 above the Wall Street estimate.
Dean Foods Co (DF) fell $1.70. Fourth quarter earnings excluding one- time items dropped to $0.27 from $0.61 a year ago, $0.03 below the Street consensus.
And MGIC Investment (MTG) down $1.57. The company is booking a $1.2 billion research deficiency for home loan defaults and that'll result in a fourth quarter loss of $18.17 a share. The Street was looking for a loss of only about $8 so bad news on MGIC.
Apple (AAPL) topped the NASDAQ's most active, up $4.54.
And look at that gain in First Solar (FSLR), up nearly $53 a share. The company, fourth quarter earnings $0.77, way up from $0.12 last year and $0.24 above the consensus. The whole solar panel group was very strong today on that news.
Google (GOOG) up $16.53.
Baidu.com (BIDU) up $15.66. Fourth quarter earnings were better than expected, $0.92, the Street estimate was only $0.75. The company was rather cautious in an outlook, but in after hours trading, Baidu stock gained another $10 from this price.
Microsoft (MSFT) $0.62 gain there. That was fifth in volume on NASDAQ.
Research in Motion (RIMM) up $5.26.
Yahoo! (YHOO) closed up $0.31. The "Wall Street Journal" reports Rupert Murdock wants to combine his myspace and other assets with Yahoo! That would certainly make an attempt to thwart Microsoft bid for Yahoo! wouldn't it?
Cisco Systems (CSCO) $0.63 gain there.
Applied Materials (AMAT) up $1.84, on good earnings out yesterday.
Intel (INTC) a $0.31 advance there.
And finally, shares in Blue Nile (NILE) sank $9.18 after the online jewelry retailer posted fourth quarter earnings of $0.45, up from $0.35 a year ago, but it sees first quarter profits of only between $0.11 and $0.14 per share on flat sales.
