Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Monday, February 25, 2008
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PAUL KANGAS: Wall Street started the week narrowly mixed but stocks firmed up after a smaller than expected decline in January existing home sales. We'll have more on those home sales figures in a moment. By late morning the Dow was sporting a 92-point gain and the NASDAQ was up 14 points. Then some light profit taking caused a pullback over the next few hours, but then came that rally on Standard & Poor's decision to keep bond insurers MBIA and Ambac at a triple-A credit rating. That helped the Dow Industrial Average surge to a closing gain of 189.20 at 12,570.22. The NASDAQ Composite rose 24.13 to 2327.48, while the Standard & Poor's 500 Index was up 18.69 ending at 1371.80. Over in the bond market, the 10-year note fell 27/32 to 96 21/32, putting the yield at 3.91 percent.
Big board volume leader today on 34.3 million shares, Citigroup (C) down $0.38. Oppenheimer cut its 2008 earnings estimate from $2.70 a share all the way down to $0.75 and of course Oppenheimer last Friday said another dividend cut is imminent. Today Goldman Sachs cut its earnings outlook on Citigroup, predicting the company would need to take more write downs on bad mortgage bets. Then General Electric (GE) $0.66 gain.
Pfizer (PFE) $0.28 advance, although the company is withdrawing advertising for its Lipitor product which features heart specialist Robert Jarvik. The company said that the ads led to misimpressions.
Motorola (MOT) down $0.20. Oppenheimer downgraded it from "out perform" to "market perform."
And then JPMorgan Chase (JPM)
a dime gain.
Moving along in the actives, Bank of America (BAC) up $0.34.
Followed by Ford Motor Co (F) up $0.21.
Wells Fargo & Co (WFC) gained $0.25.
EMC Corp (EMC) adding on $0.33.
And SprintNextel (S) with a $0.04 advance.
MBIA Inc (MBI), there you see it, up $2.40, traded as high as $15.25 on the news from Standard & Poor's rating.
And then the sister to it, Ambac Financial (ABK) closed up $1.70 on the S&P reaffirmation.
Alcoa (AA) did well, up $2.30. The European Commission has cleared New Zealand-based Rank Group to buy Alcoa's packaging and consumer business unit for $2.7 billion.
Lowes Companies (LOW) a $0.91 gain, even though fourth quarter earnings tumbled 33 percent to $0.28 from $0.40 a year ago, but that was $0.03 better than the Street consensus. Incidentally, Home Depot's fourth quarter earnings are due out tomorrow.
Genentech (DNA) did well, up $6.37. Last Friday, the FDA granted the company accelerated approval for its Avastin product, which can now be used to treat advanced breast cancer.
Fannie Mae (FNM) a $0.64 drop. It traded as low as $27 this morning after Goldman Sachs downgraded it from "neutral" to "sell," did the same for Freddie Mac, but that stock fell only $0.43 on the close.
Getty Images (GYI) star of the day, up $7.22. Private equity group Hellman and Friedman will acquire the company for $34 a share in cash.
Gulfmark (GLF) up $6.06. This is a Marine transportation company for the oil drilling platforms. Fourth quarter earnings jumped to $1.66 and that was $0.59 better than the Wall Street analysts were expecting.
Brinks Co (BCO) up $3.55. The board has approved a spin off of the company's home security unit into a separate publicly traded firm. It will be a tax-free transaction.
NASDAQ's top on the active list by Apple (AAPL) up $0.28.
Google (GOOG) got hit from profit taking, $21.36 drop.
Microsoft (MSFT) up $0.16.
Research in Motion (RIMM) $0.75 gain.
baidu.com (BIDU) down $3.38.
Intel (INTC) managed to gain $0.12.
$0.20 advance in Cisco Systems (CSCO).
Oracle (ORCL) up $0.07.
First Solar (FSLR) gained $17.06, $17.16.
And Take Two Interactive (TTWO) up $9.53. Electronic Arts Corporation is offering $26 a share on a takeover but Take Two rejected that bid as being inadequate.
Elsewhere, GTX Inc (GTX) up $4.70. Late stage trials for the company's prostate cancer treatment are promising.
And those are the stocks in the news tonight.
