Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Thursday, February 28, 2008
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PAUL KANGAS: Soaring oil prices added to selling pressures on Wall Street today. Stocks headed lower at the opening on that tepid GDP growth report and news of a larger than expected increase of 19,000 jobless benefit claims in the latest week. After 30 minutes of trading, the Dow was off 108 points and the NASDAQ down 12. The losses were trimmed during several rally attempts, but stocks just couldn't overcome continuing fears of recession, while oil, gold and silver surged to record highs and the dollar hit record lows. As a result the market ended broadly lower. The Dow Industrial Average closed off 112.10 points at 12,582.18. The NASDAQ Composite fell 22.21 points at 2331.57, while the Standard & Poor's 500 Index lost 12.34 to 1367.68. Over in the bond market, the 10-year note jumped 1 15/16 to 98 19/32, putting the yield at 3.67 percent.
Big board volume leader today on 38 million shares, SprintNextel (S) losing $0.86. It traded as low as $7.76 this morning after reporting a whopping fourth quarter loss of $10.36 a share on a 5.7 percent drop in revenue. The company wrote off almost the entire cost of the Nextel acquisition. It said it won't be declaring any dividends. Wachovia said these results were worse than expected.
Citigroup (C), second in volume, down $0.71.
AT&T (T) up $0.76. The company could benefit from Sprint's problems.
Freddie Mac (FRE) down $0.60. The company in with a fourth quarter loss of $3.97, versus only a $0.73 loss a year ago. The Street thought that the loss would only be about $2.34, so that was worse than expected.
General Electric (GE), fifth in volume, was down $0.17.
Time Warner (TWX) fell $0.51.
Followed by Motorola (MOT) with a $0.48 drop.
JPMorgan Chase (JPM) losing $1.97.
Bank of America (BAC) off $1.46.
And then came ExxonMobil (XOM) dropping just a penny per share.
Mylan Labs (MYL) very active today and down $1.12. Third quarter results excluding the cost of its Matrix Laboratories acquisition, $0.11, down from $0.63 last year. The Street was actually looking for a loss of about $0.07, but what hurt the stock is a slower than expected release of the company's emphysema drug. Apparently that was the major negative causing that loss.
Eog Resources (EOG) moving up $19.05. The company boosted its oil production estimate currently from 10 percent growth to 13 to 15 percent growth in 2009 and 2010.
Another big gainer today, Fluor Corp (FLR) up $10.41. Fourth quarter earnings jumped to $2.82 from only $0.92 a year ago. Revenues up a hefty 30 percent and the company boosted its 2008 earnings estimate from a high of $5.30 a share to as much as $5.50.
Salesforce.com (CRM), which designs software for sales needs, fourth quarter earnings of $0.06 versus just break even last year and those earnings, $0.02 above the Street estimate.
RH Donnelley (RHD), this is the publisher of the Yellow Pages, a lot of red ink today, down $8.46. The company had a fourth quarter loss of $0.17, not as bad as last year's loss of $0.72 a share, but it cut its 2008 earnings guidance, said it won't initiate any dividend and it got a downgrade from "over weight" to "neutral" from JPMorgan.
Thornburg Mortgage (TMA) losing $1.78. The company said it had to meet $300 million in margin calls just since Valentine's Day and could be required to sell assets if these margin calls continue.
Then MF Global Ltd (MF) down $8.09. The company incurred $141 million loss as one of its registered representatives exceeded his authorized limit in trading wheat futures. Apparently the futures went the wrong way.
Apple (AAPL) topped NASDAQ's active, up nearly $7 a share.
Followed by Google (GOOG) up $2.53.
Microsoft (MSFT) a $0.33 drop there.
Baidu.com (BIDU) off $5.85.
Research in Motion (RIMM) fell $2.45.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) a $0.29 loss.
Similar drop in Intel (INTC).
First Solar (FSLR) down $12.43.
Amazon.com (AMZN) fell $3.02.
And then Yahoo! (YHOO), tenth in volume, off $0.22 a share.
Hurco Companies (HURC) up nearly $12 a share. The computer controls the software company had first quarter earnings of $1.21, way above $0.84 a year ago and sales jumped 30 percent.
On the downside today, Pharmanet Development (PDGI) losing $12.73. Its fourth quarter earnings were actually better than expected at $0.33, $0.02 above the Street consensus, but the company forecast for 2008 is $1.57 at best and that's well below the Street estimate of $1.72. Those are the stocks in the news tonight.
