Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
|
|
|
|
PAUL KANGAS: Wall Street opened with modest losses on profit-taking after yesterday's super-sized rally. The Dow fell about 30 points at the outset of trading and the NASDAQ Composite lost nine points. Stocks took Fed chief Bernanke's recession comment in stride and the market staged a mid- day rally, which lifted the Dow to a 40-point gain. But that advance turned into a 75-point loss by 3:00 p.m., thanks to a spike in oil fortune - futures I should say. And then a late upturn trimmed the losses just a bit. So the Dow Industrial Average closed off 45.44 at 12,608.92, oh that's 48 points yes I've got the wrong - there we go. Let's get to the NASDAQ down 1.35 at 2,361.40. Standard & Poor's 500 lost 2.65 to 1,367.53. In the bond market, the 10-year note fell 11/32 to 99 6/32, putting the yield at 3.60 percent.
Once again at the top of the leader board, Citigroup (C) today on 36.6 million shares, the stock up $0.18. It's on a roll. It was up $2.42 yesterday and traded as high as $25.05 today.
Then came Ford Motor (F) up $0.16.
General Electric (GE) dropped $0.41.
Schering-Plough (SGP) lost $0.89. Fitch rating service put the company on negative watch.
Bank of America (BAC) a $0.56 loss there.
Altria Group (MO) $0.07 drop.
Pfizer (PFE) moved up $0.13. We'll have more on that later.
Micron Tech (MU) gained $0.39. After the close, Micron reported a second quarter loss of $1.01 a share, much bigger than last year's $0.07 per share loss, but that does include a $470 million write down for restructuring. In after hours trading, Micron stock edged another $0.13 higher.
JPMorgan Chase (JPM) fell $0.38.
And then SprintNextel (S) an $0.08 loss, tenth in big board volume.
Monsanto (MON) down $1.13. Second quarter earnings were higher, $2.02 per share. Last week, the company forecasting just $1.75. The company said strong corn and herbicide sales are helping its earnings along.
Best Buy (BBY) $0.47 gain there. The company in with fourth quarter earnings of $1.71, up from $1.55 last year. That was $0.06 above the Wall Street earnings estimate.
Dillard (DDS), the department store chain, up $2.67. The company has reached agreement with Barrington Capital Group and Clinton Group as others (ph) and this will avoid a proxy contest at the 2008 annual shareholders' meeting.
Trina Solar (TSL) up $5 even. The company has signed a long-term poly silicon supply pact with a unit of GCL Silicon Technology.
CIT Group (CIT) $1.18 gain there. There's speculation the company will make progress in selling assets in order to boost its liquidity.
Unifirst Corp (UNF) up $1.29. Second quarter earnings jumped to $0.79 from only $0.36 last year and revenues were up a respectable 22 percent.
The Talbots (TLB), the department store chain, up $1.88. The Friedman Billings brokerage upgraded its price target from $9 to $12 a share. It's already past that with today's gain. Apparently FBR liked the outline that the company had for its turnaround.
Verifone Holdings (PAY) down $3.19. Fourth quarter gross profit margins were hurt by charges for excess and obsolete inventory. The company will restate first, second and third quarter results for fiscal '07 and those changes due to accounting errors. The CFO incidentally resigned.
Apple (AAPL) topped the active list down $2.04 on NASDAQ.
Research in Motion (RIMM) off $1.69. After the close, Research came in with fourth quarter earnings of $0.72, up from $0.33 last year and it's upbeat on the first quarter. In after hours trading, RIMM stock was up another $5 or so.
Baidu.com (BIDU) $8.23 gain. The company has hired away Apple's chief operating officer in China.
Google (GOOG) a one penny loss.
Microsoft (MSFT) down $0.34.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) dropped $0.02.
First Solar (FSLR) up $12.02.
Intel (INTC) $0.12 loss.
Qualcomm (QCOM) down $0.27.
Yahoo! (YHOO), tenth in volume, lost $0.68 a share.
Crocs (CROX), the footwear company, down $1.78. JPMorgan made some negative comments about the outlook for its U.S. sales for the first quarter.
And finally, Medarex (MEDX) slid $1.69 after partner Pfizer ended late stage trials for a melanoma treatment.
