Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Monday, March 24, 2008
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PAUL KANGAS: That unexpected rise in existing home sales and of course the sweetened bid by JPMorgan for a Bear Stearns takeover brought Wall Street's bulls out in force this morning. In a steady surge, the Dow posted a 231-point gain by midday, with the NASDAQ Composite up a hefty 72 points. The strong breadth and trading volume convinced many investors the market was signaling it had bottomed out. But some late selling trimmed the gains and cast doubt on that theory. Still, the Dow Industrial Average closed up 187.32 points at 12,548.64. The NASDAQ vaulted 68.64 points ending at 2326.75, while the Standard & Poor's 500 rose 20.37 ending at 1349.88. Over in the bond market, the 10-year note lost 1 26/32 to 99 17/32, putting the yield at 3.56 percent.
Big board volume leader as it so often is, Citigroup (C) trading 35.8 million shares today, edging up $0.79.
Then Bear Stearns (BSC) the big gainer of the day, up 76 percent with that advance of $4.86. As you heard, the bid from JPMorgan sweetened from $2 to $10 a share. Incidentally, Standard & Poor's repeated a "sell" on Bear Stearns and repeated a "buy" on JPMorgan stock.
Ford Motor (F) up $0.34. The "Financial Times" of London reported late today that the company is due to report an agreement to sell its Jaguar and Land Rover units to India's Tata Motors. The price will be around $2 billion.
JPMorgan Chase (JPM) up $0.58.
Then came GE (GE) with a $0.07 loss.
Moving along on the active list, Bank of America (BAC) up $0.59.
Washington Mutual (WM) $0.40 advance.
Pfizer (PFE) edged up $0.02.
And then Wells Fargo (WFC) $0.46 drop there. The Baird brokerage downgraded it from "neutral" to "under perform" on a valuation basis.
Tenth in volume was Time Warner (TWX) with a $0.44 gain.
Lehman Brothers (LEH) down $2.01. Oppenheimer brokerage downgraded it from "out perform" to just "perform."
And then CIT Group (CIT) rebounded $3.40 after losing about $2 a share last Thursday on reports it was having funding problems. Today the "Wall Street Journal" reported the firm is talking to an overseas bank in hopes it'll come to the rescue. Stiffel Nicolas brokerage upgraded the stock from "hold" to a "buy" on CIT Group.
Monsanto (MON) up $7.13. UBS financial upgraded it from "neutral" to a "buy" recommendation.
Then Potash Saskatchewan (POT), the big fertilizer firm, up $6.54. RBC Capital upgraded it from "out perform" to "top pick" rating and CIBC upgraded it from "sector perform" to "out perform."
Abitibibowater (ABH), the forest products company, gaining $3.79. The Fairfax Financial Corporation is going to invest $350 million in convertible bonds of Abitibibowater.
On the downside, we have Medco Health Solutions (MHS) off $2.49, I'm sorry, $2.46. RJ Financial, Raymond James that is, downgraded it from "out perform" to just a "market perform."
Cambrex Group (CBM) losing $1.06. The company says that customers recalling a product for which it supplies the active pharmaceutical ingredient and this could affect 2008 results materially.
Walgreen (WAG) up $1.83. Second quarter earnings nicely higher, $0.69 versus $0.65 last year, $0.02 above the Street estimate.
And Tiffany & Co (TIF) had a good day, up $4.05. Fourth quarter earnings, $1.27, up from $1.07 last year, $0.06 above the Wall Street estimate.
And then the discount retailer Big Lots (BIG) up $1.89. The company got an upgrade from "buy" to "strong buy" from the Webush Morgan brokerage.
Apple (AAPL) topped the NASDAQ active list, up $6.26.
Google (GOOG) up $27.01. The company says it found a new way to enter the wireless market through white space. It's kind of complicated.
Baidu.com (BIDU) up $32.10. The company hired Jennifer Lee as its new CFO. She was with GM China.
Research in Motion (RIMM) up $6.89.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) $0.87 gain there.
Microsoft (MSFT) lost a penny.
Intel (INTC) $0.38 advance.
First Solar (FSLR) up $15.84.
Qualcomm (QCOM) gained $1.62.
And Oracle (ORCL) edged up $0.69 a share.
XM Satellite Radio (XMSR) up $1.85. The Department of Justice as we touched on, has approved the merger, but the FCC still has to give up approval and Sirius was up $0.25 a share incidentally.
Synplicity Inc (SYNP) up $2.53. Synopsis Corp. will acquire this firm for $8 a share in cash or $227 million.
Those are the stocks in the news tonight.
