Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Friday, March 14, 2008
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PAUL KANGAS: What began as a quiet trading day on Wall Street turned rough very quickly as a wave of selling hit the market on news of the Bear Stearns bailout. Traders ignored today's benign report on February consumer prices and an hour into the session, the Dow had tumbled 255 points with the NASDAQ Composite off 28 points. As fear spread that the Bear Stearns crisis might spread to other major investment houses, the Dow plunged to a 300 point mid-afternoon loss. But then a late rally cut those losses considerably. The Dow Industrial Average ended the day down 194.65 points at 11,951.09. This week, it rose twice and fell three times and actually had a net gain of 57.40 points. The NASDAQ fell 51.12 ending at 2212.49 today. It also rose twice and fell three times and was unchanged for the week, absolutely unchanged. Standard & Poor's 500 lost 27.34 to 1288.14 today and it lost 5.23 points for the week overall. In the bond market, the 10-year note gained 15/32 to par and 8/32, putting the yield at 3.47 percent.
Now, let's take a look at some stocks in the news, but first, I want to correct something we had on our boards about the weekly move in the NASDAQ Composite index. It was absolutely unchanged as I mentioned, but we had a wrong figure on the board. You don't see that very often, a weekly change that isn't a change. Now let's take a look at those stocks in the news. Big board volume leader Citigroup (C) down $1.26, a new 10-year low, traded 40 million shares.
Then came the major casualty of the day, Bear Stearns (BSC) tumbling $26.15. It traded as low as $28.42 during the day, down 46 percent and incidentally, all the major rating agencies have cut the company's debt ratings.
General Electric (GE) $0.43 drop there.
JPMorgan Chase (JPM) itself down $1.57.
Lehman Brothers (LEH) caught in the bank, investment bank problems, $6.73 loss.
A dime lost in Ford Motor (F).
Then Bank of America (BAC) in the weak sector, down $1.45.
Pfizer (PFE) fell $0.57.
Washington Mutual (WM) down $1.56. Moody's downgraded the company's senior unsecured debt rating from BAA two to BAA three and also has a negative outlook.
Wells Fargo (WFC) down $1.03 in the weak financial sector.
Goldman Sachs (GS), here's some more investment banking stocks hard hit, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch (MER), Morgan Stanley (MS), Prudential Financial (PRU) and UBS AG (UBS), all major casualties on the day on that Bear Stearns news.
Boeing (BA), one of the few Dow stocks to show a gain, up $1.93. Morgan Stanley upgraded it from "equal weight" to "over weight," sees the stock's downside risk just in the high '60s over the next 18 to 24 months and an upside potential of as much as $120 a share.
Dupont (DD) and that's a Dow stock, down $0.38, even though the company said first quarter earnings will be as much as $1.19. That's up
from its previous estimate of $1.17 a share.
Nike (NKE) down $1.07 as we touched on. The company said it found falsified documents, under age workers and unpaid wages at some of its suppliers in China.
AnnTaylor Stores (ANN) losing $1.95. The company posted a fourth quarter loss of $0.11 a share, versus earnings of $0.31 last year and is very cautious about the first quarter. Standard & Poor's downgraded it from "buy" to "hold."
Newcastle Investment (NCT) down $1.64. The company cut its dividend 65 percent. It will go from $0.72 down to $0.25 and the Friedman, Billings, Ramsay brokerage downgraded it from "out perform" to "market perform" and cut its price target from $17 down to $10 a share.
Western Refining (WNR) off $1.38. Standard & Poor's put the company's ratings on review because of concerns over the rapid deterioration in refining margins.
And then finally we see Wuxi Pharmatech Cayman (WX) down, up $2.83, more than quadrupled, fourth quarter earnings, $0.17 versus only $0.04 last year. Jefferies upgraded it from "hold" to "buy."
Topping the active list on NASDAQ, Apple (AAPL) down $1.33.
Microsoft (MSFT) $0.66 drop there.
Google (GOOG) fell $5.09.
Research in Motion (RIMM) losing $3.96.
Baidu.com (BIDU) a $0.04 loss there.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) $0.63 drop.
Intel (INTC) $0.62 drop.
And then Yahoo! (YHOO) off $0.79. Microsoft said, reportedly, it had talks last Monday with Yahoo! about the potential merger incidentally.
First Solar (FSLR) down $6.45.
And Qualcomm (QCOM) fell $1.02 a share.
Skillsoft Plc (SKIL) up $1.16. Fourth quarter earnings, $0.31, $0.30 above the Street estimate, revenues up 34 percent. And on the downside we see ICX Technologies (ICXT) losing $1.85. The company reported a fourth quarter loss of $0.32. The Street was looking for a loss of only $0.14.
And those are the stocks in the news tonight.
