Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
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PAUL KANGAS: Wal-Mart's results sat well on Wall Street early today, as the Dow soared 130 points at the outset of trading and the NASDAQ rose 20 points. Leading the rally were commodity stocks, specializing in oil, coal and iron ore. Some of the financial issues were under pressure on fear that more big write-downs might be in the offing. As oil surged to the $100-per-barrel level this afternoon, stocks saw much if not all of their gains evaporate and the market ended near its lows of the day. The Dow Industrial Average closed off 10.99 at 12,337.22. The NASDAQ Composite lost 15.60 at 2,306.20. Standard & Poor's 500 Index fell 1.21 to end at 1,348.78. In the bond market, the 10-year note fell 1 4/32 to 96 23/32, putting the yield at 3.90 percent.
Big board volume leader once again today on 22 million shares, Citigroup (C) down $0.16. The company is selling or closing some retail branches and consumer finance operations in Asia, Europe and Latin America. AT&T (T) was down $1.99. The company and Verizon are in a price war. Both companies unveiled unlimited flat rate calling plans to attract more high end customers.
Sprint Nextel (S) in there with a $0.34 loss.
Then General Electric (GE) down $0.09.
And there Verizon Comm (VZ) the competitor with AT&T losing $2.49 on that price war news.
Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) closed up $0.08. After the close, the company reported first quarter earnings excluding one-time items $0.86 a share. That's $0.05 better than the Street was expecting. In after hours trading, Hewlett stock was about $2 higher than this price on the board.
Bank of America (BAC) down $0.03.
And then the big mining company, that's Co vale do Rio (RIO), Brazilian firm, up $1.47. Some major steel producers in Asia and Europe have agreed to pay up to 65 percent more for the company's iron ore this year. The higher iron ore prices should result in higher steel prices and therefore higher profit margins for the steel producers.
Let's have a look at how they fared today. Nucor (NUE) up $1.88.
Steel Dynamics (GTLD) rose nearly $3.50.
And US Steel (X) itself, up $2.77.
Now back to the active list and we see Pfizer (PFE) with a $0.04 gain.
Followed by JPMorgan Chase (JPM) which was down $0.42, tenth in volume on the big board.
Holly Corp (HOC), this is a refining firm, up $5.81. Fourth quarter earnings $0.90 up from $0.84 last year. Revenues jumped 54 percent.
Alon USA Energy (ALJ), this is the company that had an explosion and fire at its Big Spring, Texas refinery. That will shut down daily production of up to 70,000 barrels of oil.
Then another energy stock, Foundation Coal Holdings (FCL) up $5.77. Raymond James financial brokerage upgraded it from "market perform" to "out perform."
RTI Intl Metals (RTI), this company's involved with titanium particularly and that was up $3.10 on earnings of - for the fourth quarter, $1.08, down from $1.16 last year, but that was $0.04 above the Street consensus.
Then Sony (SNF) up $2.18. The company has won the DVD format war, allowing its blu ray technology to become the industry standard over Toshiba's HD-DVD systems.
And then Blackrock (BLK) down $7.42, traded as low as $180 a share this morning, but the company then denied rumors it had sustained heavy losses on soured housing market bets.
Moving along we see Westlake Chemical (WLK) down $2.33. Fourth quarter earnings excluding one-time items, $0.17, up from $0.12 last year, but that was $0.16 below the Street consensus.
Then Officemax (OMX) did well, up $1.13. Fourth quarter earnings jumped to $0.92 from $0.76 last year and Goldman Sachs repeated a "buy" on Office Max stock.
Apple (AAPL) topped the active list on NASDAQ, down $2.49.
Followed by Google (GOOG) dropping over $20 a share.
Microsoft (MSFT) off $0.14.
Baidu.com (BIDU) down $12.35.
Research in Motion (RIMM) closed with a loss of $2.30. The company filed suit against Motorola and Motorola countersued. The companies have a disagreement regarding a long-standing technology sharing pact. They can't agree on new conditions apparently.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) $0.42 drop there.
First Solar (FSLR) was off $7.45.
Intel (INTC) a $0.05 gain.
And then Yahoo! (YHOO) down $0.65.
While Qualcomm (QCOM) was down $0.25 a share.
Onyx Pharmaceutical (ONXX) plunging $11.89 a share. The company halted trials of its lung cancer treatment because it did not improve survival rates.
And those are the stocks in the news tonight.
