Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
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PAUL KANGAS: Wall Street's blue chips opened the day in profit-taking mode as the Dow lost ground as investors cashed in on two upside sessions that equaled a near 450-point gain. That drop in consumer confidence was another factor sending the Dow lower by 74 points at 11:00 a.m., while the NASDAQ fell only two points. A Citigroup upgrade of Yahoo! gave firmness to the tech sector and that strength helped the blue chips recover, with just minor losses at the final bell. The Dow Industrial Average closed down just 16.04 at 12,532.60. The NASDAQ Composite gained 14.30 to 2,341.05, while the Standard & Poor's 500 Index rose 3.11 ending at 1,352.99. In the bond market, the 10-year note gained 12/32 to 99 29/32, putting the yield at 3.51 percent.
Once again at the top of the active board was Citigroup (C) trading 23 million shares today, edging up $0.13. Followed by Ford Motor (F) $0.04 gain there. Reportedly Ford is on the verge of selling its Jaguar and Land Rover units to India's Tata Motors and the price somewhere around $2 billion.
Pfizer (PFE) a $0.17 gain there.
GE (GE) fell $0.15.
Bank of America (BAC) down $1.48 after Merrill Lynch downgraded it from "neutral" to "sell."
JPMorgan Chase (JPM) $0.49 drop there.
SprintNextel (S) off $0.16.
Time Warner (TWX) up $0.27.
ExxonMobil (XOM) down $0.60.
And Nokia (NOK) did well, up $1.31 today. The company's chief financial officer gave a very upbeat outlook for the company and the industry.
Merrill Lynch (MER) down only $0.53 at the close, traded as low as $46.55 during the day after UBS financial, JPMorgan and Foxx Pitt Kelton brokerages all forecast a first quarter loss for Merrill. They expect more write downs.
Then we see Capital One Financial (COF) off $1.30 and it traded as low as $51.01. Friedman, Billings Ramsay brokerage downgraded it from "market perform" to "under perform" and Calyon securities cut it from "buy" to just a "neutral" rating.
Lehman Brothers Holdings (LEH) off $1.43. The Fox Pitt Kelton brokerage cut second quarter earnings estimates from $1.97 down to $1.48 and also cut the target price from $83 down to $70 a share.
MGIC Investment (MTG) off $1.05. The company is selling 37.3 million shares in a public offering at a price of $11.25 a share and it also plans to sell 390 million in convertible bonds in a private placement.
Monsanto (MON) had a great day, up $10.28. The company boosted its 2008 earnings estimate from a high previously of $2.80 a share now to as much as $3.25 a share. The company cited strong feed and herbicide sales.
Goodrich Petroleum (GDP) up $3.75. The company owns a large area of Louisiana's Hainesville (ph) shale oil field and Chesapeake Energy said that that field could hold 20 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. That would be quite a resource.
Wimm-Bill-Dann Foods (WBD), this is a major Russian food company and it got an upgrade from Citigroup from "hold" to "buy" and year-end earnings are due out Friday incidentally.
Then Williams Sonoma (WSM) off $1.10. FTN Midwest securities downgraded it from "buy" to just a "neutral" rating.
Then came Mosaic (MOS), fertilizer firm, up $5.09. The company got a ratings boost in its unsecured debt from Standard & Poor's which now rates it at BB+.
Then came Clear Channel (CCU) which closed down $1.89, but after the close, the "Wall Street Journal" reported the private equity $19 billion buyout is near collapse due to funding issues. In after hours trading, Clear Channel down to $27.25. That's off another 16 percent from where it closed.
Apple (AAPL) topped the active list with a gain of $1.45.
Research in Motion (RIMM) up $4.12.
Google (GOOG) down $9.78.
Baidu.com (BIDU) off $4.39.
Microsoft (MSFT) a $0.03 loss there, fifth in volume.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) up $0.11.
First Solar (FSLR) had a good day, up $10.23.
Intel (INTC) $0.14 gain.
Oracle (ORCL) edged up $0.31.
And Yahoo! (YHOO) up $1.21. Citigroup upgraded it from "hold" to "buy" and said Microsoft is likely to boost its takeover bid from $31 to $34 a share.
Sirf Technology Holdings (SIRF) losing about almost 29 percent of its value, off $1.96. The company makes a small navigational devices and it cut its first quarter revenue forecast from a high of $77 million to as little as $60 million. Also it plans on cutting its workforce by 7 percent.
And those are the stocks in the news tonight.
