Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Thursday, March 06, 2008
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PAUL KANGAS: Sellers dominated Wall Street in early trading amid news of those record high home foreclosures, margin calls and generally tepid retail sales. By late morning, the Dow had tumbled 140 points, with the NASDAQ off 17 points. The market remained sharply lower as the day wore on, with few buyers willing to step in ahead of tomorrow's February employment report. Adding to the negative tone, another new high for crude. Oil prices closed at a record $105.47 a barrel. Stocks also broke below several key support levels and then went on to close at their lows of the day. The Dow Industrial Average down 214.60 points at 12,040.39. The NASDAQ Composite plunged 52.31 ending at 2,220.50. Standard & Poor's 500 Index tumbled 29.36 ending at 1,304.34. Over in the bond market, the 10- year note rose 24/32 to 99 8/32, putting the yield at 3.59 percent.
Big board volume leader on 25 3/4 million shares, Citigroup (C), that's down $0.98 and I believe that's about a 10-year low for the stock. After the close, the company said it's going to scale back its mortgage operations to free up capital. The company has a $200 billion loan portfolio and that will be cut by about 20 percent over the next year. Then came Annaly Capital Mortgage (NLY) down $3.50 a share. Failure by Thornburg Mortgage and Dutch-based Carlisle Capital to meet margin calls set off a wave of selling in the real estate investment trust. Let's have a look at more of them.
Anworth Mortgage (ANH), Deerfield Capital (DER), Capstead Mortgage (CMO) and MFA Mortgage (MFA) all major percentage losers on the day.
Back to the active list, General Electric (GE) down $0.81.
SprintNextel (S) was a $0.20 loser.
Bank of America (BAC) the weak sector of banking, down $1.03.
And we see more weak banks, JPMorgan Chase (JPM) off $1.32.
Merrill Lynch (MER) down $3.50. The company is discontinuing mortgage originations at its First Franklin unit in the U.S. and may sell its mortgage servicing unit.
Fannie Mae (FNM) down $2.61. Corporate agency debt obligations issued by the company fell relative to U.S. government securities. Same thing happened to Freddie Mac (FRE) today and that stock fell $1.50 a share.
Wachovia (WS) down $1.29.
And then Pfizer (PFE) with a $0.45 loss, topping off the 10 actives.
Thornburg Mortgage (TMA), the big percentage losers of the day, off nearly 51 1/2 percent after the company could not meet a $28 million margin call and so now the company's liquidity is in question. The stock really hit.
Wal-Mart Stores (WMT) up $0.39. As you heard, February same store sales at Wal-Mart up 2.6 percent and the company is boosting its annual dividend by 8 percent to $0.95 a share.
Some more retailers, Nordstrom (JWN) down $2.34. February same store sales there down 5.8 percent. The Street was only looking for about a 3 1/2 percent drop.
Longs Drug Store (LDG) down $6.81. Fourth quarter earnings, $0.97, up from $0.84, but that was only in line with estimates and the company's 2009 earnings guidance of $3.12 a share at best, $0.02 below the Street estimate.
A good gainer today, Steinway Music (LVB) up $2.47. Fourth quarter adjusted earnings, $0.91, $0.17 better than the Street was expecting and way up from $0.13 a year ago.
National Semiconductor (NSM) closed down $0.51, but after the close, the company announced fourth quarter earnings, $0.28, up from last year's $0.22, a nickel better than the Street was expecting and that stock after the close was as high as $17.63.
NASDAQ's most active, Apple (AAPL) down $3.56.
Google (GOOG) got hit, $15 despite optimism the company will get European Union approval to take over Doubleclick Corp.
Microsoft (MSFT) a $0.55 loss there.
Research in Motion (RIMM) down $3.81.
What's this, a gainer? Baidu.com (BIDU) up $0.20 a share, fifth in volume.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) down $0.33.
Oracle (ORCL) bucked the trend, up $0.43.
Then Intel (INTC) $0.33 loss.
Yahoo! (YHOO) a $0.03 gain.
And First Solar (FSLR) down $4.42 a share.
Comtech Telecommunications (CMTL) up $4.51. Second quarter earnings jumped to $0.91 from $0.68 a year ago and the company boosted its 2008 revenue estimate.
On the downside, Omrix Biopharmaceuticals (OMRI) plunging $10.96. Fourth quarter earnings came in at $0.19, way down from $0.41 a year ago and $0.07 below the Street estimate.
And those are the stocks in the news tonight.
