Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Thursday, March 20, 2008
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PAUL KANGAS: Wall Street opened in a technical rebound from yesterday's steep sell-off with buyers getting encouragement from Nike's 30 percent jump in earnings, a brokerage upgrade on General Electric stock and those falling commodity prices. At 11:00 a.m., the Dow was sporting a 147-point gain, the NASDAQ up 22 points. After a mild mid-day pullback, a rally in the dollar and details from the Fed about next week's first leg of the $200 billion funding to the banking system, helped lift the market to a strong close. The Dow Industrial Average ended with a gain of 261.66 points at 12,361.32. In this four-day trading week, it fell just once and rose 410.23 points, overall. The NASDAQ Composite closed with a gain of 48.15 at 2,258.11 today and it was up twice and down twice for a gain of 45.62 points this week, overall. Standard & Poor's 500 up 31.09 at 1,329.51 today and it gained 41.37 points for the week. In the bond market, the 10- year note fell 3/32 to 101 11/32, putting the yield at 3.34 percent. Familiar name up there at the top of the active board, Citigroup (C) on 73 3/4 million shares, rose $2.09. Reportedly the company plans to lay off another 2,000 investment bankers and traders by the end of this month. General Electric (GE) doing well, up $1.90. Merrill Lynch upgraded it from "neutral" to "buy." The company's NBC Universal unit plans to sell its owner and operated stations in Miami and Hartford, Connecticut.
JPMorgan Chase (JPM) moved up $3.50.
A similar rise in 0Bank of America (BAC) on that strong sector.
Ford Motor (F) edged up $0.17 a share.
ExxonMobil (XOM), $0.57 gain.
Merrill Lynch (MER) did very well, up $5.40. As you see, the investment bankers did well.
Pfizer (PFE) a $0.02 loss there.
SprintNextel (S) $0.74 gain.
And then CIT Group Inc. (CIT) plunging $2.01 and at one state today, it was as low as $6.61. The company said it's drawing on its $7.3 billion credit facilities and is seeking additional funding which Standard & Poor's sees as a difficult task and it issued a "sell" on CIT stock.
Wal-Mart Stores (WMT) up $2.45. That's partially in reaction to the pullback in oil prices, nice move there today.
And then Nike (NKE) $5.44 gain. After the close yesterday, third quarter earnings came in at $0.92 versus $0.68 a year ago. Revenues up 16 percent. The company said the weak dollar helped its sales considerably.
US Steel Corp. (X) up $4.68. Goldman Sachs upgraded it from "neutral" to a "buy" recommendation.
And as you might expect, Barrick Gold (ABX) down $3.25. April New York gold, $25.30 lower, closing at $920 an ounce, rough week for the gold.
Credit Suisse (CS), big brokerage, down $0.37, traded as low as $0.46 during the day. The company said after reviewing its securities positions, it warned that it could have its first quarterly loss in five years.
Book seller Barnes and Noble (BKS) up $2.27. Fourth quarter earnings down a bit from last year, $1.79 versus $1.83 but revenues were up 1.7 percent and the company's boosting its quarterly dividend from $0.15 to $0.25 a share.
Another book seller, Borders Group (BGP) didn't do so well, down $2.03. Fourth quarter earnings a penny below last year at $1.44. The company said it's reviewing strategic alternatives including the possible sale of all or part of the company.
Winnebago Industries (WGO), the RV maker, down $1.62. Second quarter earnings came in at only $0.09. The Street was expecting $0.23 and revenues dropped 18 percent.
Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG) up $9.46. Raymond James financial brokerage upgraded it from "under perform" to "market perform" and that had a positive effect on a lot of the restaurant stocks today like Brinkers and Darden, which were nicely higher.
NASDAQ most active, Apple (AAPL) up $3.60.
And then Google (GOOG) up $1.55, even though RBC Capital cut its price target from $675 to $530 a share, mainly due to a drop in search volume.
Baidu.com (BIDU) down $12.31.
Research in Motion (RIMM) a gain of $3.82.
Microsoft (MSFT) edged up $0.56 a share.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) $0.30 gain there.
Intel (INTC) moved up $0.66. The company is boosting its quarterly dividend by 10 percent to $0.14 a share.
Qualcomm Inc (QCOM) $0.42 advance.
Oracle (ORCL) up $0.52.
And Amazon.com (AMZN) had a good day, up $3.02.
Children's Place (PLCE), the retailer of children's clothing, up $2.65. The company is selling its domestic Disney stores back to Disney.
And those are the stocks in the news tonight.
