Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
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PAUL KANGAS: On Wall Street, those record oil prices were far overshadowed by the Fed's aggressive infusion of liquidity into the banking system. Stocks skyrocketed at the opening, with the Dow moving up 275 points and the NASDAQ up 40 points in just the first half hour of trading. There was a mild mid-day pullback, but stocks came on strong again thanks to buyers who feared they might miss a major market upturn. Frantic short covering added to the gains. At the final bell, the Dow Industrial Average posted a huge gain of 416.66 points at 12,156.81. The NASDAQ Composite soared 86.42 ending at 2,255.76, while the Standard & Poor's 500 Index jumped 47.28 to close at 1,320.65. In the bond market, the 10-year note plummeted 1 2/32 to 99 7/32, lifting the yield to 3.59 percent.
Once again topping the active list today on 41.2 million shares, Citigroup (C) moving up $1.80. The big banks like Citi were very strong today on the Fed's addition of liquidity. SprintNextel (S) dropped $0.55.
Then General Electric (GE) had a good day, up $1.70.
Bank of America (BAC) gained $2.41 on the strong banking sector.
Followed by JPMorgan Chase (JPM) up $2.36 a share.
Washington Mutual (WM) up $1.84 on speculation the company may get a capital infusion from Goldman Sachs or perhaps even from Warren Buffett.
Wells Fargo (WFC), another strong bank, up nearly $3.
Well over a $3 in Wachovia (WS).
Ford (F) up $0.30.
And then tenth in volume was Pfizer (PFE) with a $0.57 gain.
Wellpoint (WLP), the health benefits company, plunging $18.66 after the company cut its first quarter earnings estimate from $1.44 down to $1.26 at best. The company cited higher medical costs and lower than expected insured enrollments and the news from Wellpoint had a very negative impact on the whole sector of health benefits.
Let's have a look at some of the majors, Aetna (AET), Coventry Health Care (CVM), Health-Net (HNT), Humana (HUM) all major losers on the day.
Unitedhealth Group (UNH) off $6.83.
One of the groups that was strong was mortgage-related stocks Annaly Capital Management (NLY) up $2.50 on that liquidity addition.
And then we Capstead Mortgage (CMO), Fannie Mae (FNM), Freddie Mac (FRE) all better than $2 gainers.
And Thornburg Mortgage (TMA) up only $0.85, but that turned out to be a 120 percent gain from where it was. This quote is from compositing trading incidentally.
Systemax (SYX) up $2.84. The company had fourth quarter earnings of $0.64, almost triple last year's $0.22 on a 19 percent jump in revenues. The company set a special a $1 a share cash dividend. The company sells computers and related products.
Duff & Phelps Co (DUF) up $4.34. It's an investment banking services company and it reported a fourth quarter loss of $0.49 when the Street was looking for earnings of $0.20, but revenues were better than expected at $92 million and earnings guidance for the future was well above Street estimates. You might recall, Duff & Phelps went public in September at a price of $16 a share.
Piper Jaffray Cos (PJC) did well, up $6.05 on optimism that its Asian operations will grow 20 percent annually over the next few years, thanks to more Chinese initial public offerings.
Then we see Spartech (SEH) which makes thermal plastic sheeting, came in with a first quarter loss of $0.12 versus the Street estimate for earnings of $0.10 to $0.15 a share, no wonder the stock was down a bit.
Standard Motor Products (SMP) fell $1.27. A fourth quarter loss of $0.19 versus earnings of $0.14 last year. Standard & Poor's downgraded it from "buy" to a "hold."
Topping the NASDAQ active list, Apple (AAPL) up $7.66.
And Google (GOOG) up $26.22, you heard the news, it now owns Doubleclick.
Microsoft (MSFT), look at that gain, up $1.23, best move on the upside in a long time.
Research in Motion (RIMM) up $7.15.
Baidu.com (BIDU) up just over $19 a share.
Cisco (CSCO) gained $1.16.
$1.08 rise in Intel (INTC), nice move there.
First Solar (FSLR) up $21.54.
Qualcomm (QCOM) up $0.25.
Similar gain in Oracle (ORCL), tenth in volume.
Global Sources (GSOL), this is a company that has online marketing systems. Citigroup upgraded it from "hold" to "buy" after the company reported fourth quarter earnings of $0.26, up from $0.20 last year.
And a major loser was Superior Well Services (SWSI) plunging $5.61. Fourth quarter earnings, $0.30, down from $0.49 last year and $0.22 below the Wall Street consensus estimate.
And those are our stocks in the news tonight.
