Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Thursday, February 21, 2008
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PAUL KANGAS: Lower oil prices helped Wall Street extend yesterday's gains on the opening today. Strong markets in Asia and Europe added to the early buying with the Dow up 60 points at the outset of trading and the NASDAQ adding 17 points. But the market began losing ground after the Philadelphia Fed's manufacturing index showed a sharp decline. That raised concerns a recession might be in the offing and it sent stocks to a broadly lower close. The Dow Industrial Average ended off 142.96 points at 12,284.30. The NASDAQ Composite was down 27.32 at 2299.78, while the Standard & Poor's 500 Index fell exactly 17 1/2 points to close at 1342.53. In the bond market, the 10-year note gained 26/32 to 97 19/32, putting the yield at 3.79 percent.
Most active big board issue not Citigroup for a change, was General Electric (GE) at the top of the board, trading 22.4 million shares, down $0.36. Then came Citigroup (C) off $0.44.
Ford Motor Co (F) losing $0.18.
Pfizer (PFE) down $0.07.
And then SprintNextel (S) a $0.20 loss there.
AT&T (T) the only gainer in the active list of 10, $0.11 advance.
Bank of America (BAC) a $0.76 loss.
ExxonMobil (XOM) on those lower oil prices, down $1.18.
JPMorgan Chase (JPM) off $0.08.
And then Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) down $0.61, a little profit taking after a good gain yesterday on very good earnings.
And hurray, ladies and gentlemen we have our charts back and ChoicePoint (CPS) had a very good day as you can see, up $14.61 or 43 percent. The company provides data to the insurance industry and an English company called Reed Alcavier (ph) is going to acquire it for $50 a share in cash.
Then we have Furniture Brands Intl (FBN) up $2.44. SCF - let's make that SCSF Eequities, says it owns about 9 1/2 percent and it made a non- binding proposal to acquire all the other shares at a substantial premium to the recent price of $10 a share, nice move today on that news.
JC Penney Co (JCP) managed an $0.08 gain despite lower fourth quarter earnings of $1.93 versus $2.09 last year. Sales dipped 2.3 percent.
Then Valassis Communications (VCI) up $1.25, $0.43 in fourth quarter earnings, way up $0.14 last year and the company's upbeat on its 2008 earnings outlook.
TRW Automotive Hldgs (TRW) up $2.52. Fourth quarter earnings, $0.44, way up from $0.16 last year. Sales were up 19 percent.
Then came Analog Devices (ADI) edging up $0.91. Fourth quarter earnings were lower, $0.40 versus last year's $0.44, but that was $0.05 better than the Street was expecting.
Lithia Motors (LAD) had a rough day, down $4.64. Fourth quarter loss of $0.26 versus earnings of $0.27 last year. The Street was actually looking for earnings of $0.27. And the Raymond James financial brokerage downgraded the stock from "strong buy" to "under perform."
On the upside, Terex Corp (TEX) gaining $4.52. Fourth quarter earnings jumped to $1.67 from only $0.97 last year. Sales jumped 27 percent. Standard & Poor's repeated a "strong buy."
Volume leader on NASDAQ, Research in Motion (RIMM) up $8.78. The company now sees fourth quarter subscriber growth of 15 to 20 percent above its December forecast.
Apple (AAPL) down $2.28.
Google (GOOG) a $6.14 loss.
Microsoft (MSFT) you heard the news, down $0.12.
Intel (INTC) an $0.08 loss there.
Moving along in the actives, Cisco Systems (CSCO) dropped a penny.
Baidu.com (BIDU) off $4.50.
Oracle (ORCL) down $0.54.
First Solar (FSLR) $5.41 drop.
And Yahoo! (YHOO) fell $0.41.
HLTH Corp (HLTH) up $1.84. The company and WebMD health will merge in a deal worth about $12.84 in cash and stock for Health Corp shareholders.
And then Itron (ITRI), which makes meters of all kinds, up $13.01. Fourth quarter earnings came in at $0.81, way up from $0.48 last year and $0.09 better than the Street was expecting.
And then Vasco Data Security (VDSI) plunging $6.88. Fourth quarter earnings $0.09, $0.11 below the Street estimate and down from $0.13 last year. The company cited delays in sales deals for some of its software security products.
And those are the stocks in the news tonight.
