Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Friday, April 04, 2008
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PAUL KANGAS: Wall Street's knee-jerk reaction to that weak jobs report was a moderate sell-off. The Dow lost 90 points at the outset of trading, but the NASDAQ Composite fell only five points and soon turned into higher ground. That rather resilient performance brought buyers out from the sidelines and fueled a modest rally, which lifted the Dow to a 60-point gain and the NASDAQ to a 30-point rise in mid-afternoon. But then some normal pre-weekend cautionary selling resulted in a mixed close. The Dow Industrial Average ended with a loss of 16.61 points at 12,609.42. This week, it fell twice, rose three times, had a net gain of 393.02 points. The NASDAQ Composite was up 7.68 to close at 2,370.98 today. This week, it fell only once and advanced 109.80 points overall. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index closed with a gain of 1.09 at 1,370.40 today and it was up 55.18 points for the week overall. Over in the bond market, the 10-year note gained 1 1/32 to par and 8/32, putting the yield at 3.47 percent.
Citigroup (C) once again topped the active list on the big board, trading 16 million shares today. The stock down $0.28. The company's agreed to pay $33 million to about 2500 current and former female brokers at its Smith Barney unit in order to settle a class action gender discrimination lawsuit. Ford Motor Co (F) in there with a $0.03 gain.
Washington Mutual (WM) down $1.32.
Schering-Plough (SGP) up $0.74.
Bank of America (BAC) down $0.96. Both Bear Stearns and JPMorgan cut 2008 earnings estimates on Bank America in anticipation of further write downs.
General Electric (GE) fell $0.28.
Followed by Altria Group (MO) with a $0.30 loss.
Co vale do Rio (RIO) was up $0.72.
Pfizer (PFE) a penny gainer.
And JPMorgan Chase (JPM) down $0.71, tenth in volume.
Massey Energy (MEE) up $7.27. The company said its first quarter coal revenues are projected to bring $55 to $56 a ton. That's about $10 per ton above its operating cost to extract the coal.
That had a very good impact on other coal stocks like Arch Coal (ACI), Alpha Natural Resources (ANA), Consol Energy (CNX) and Peabody Energy (BTU), all doing well on the upside.
ITT Education (ESI) gained $7.80. Members of Congress introduced legislation today that would allow the Department of Education to buy student loans from lenders in need of new capital.
And this news had a great impact on other education stocks like Apollo Group (APOL), Career Education (CECO), Corinthian College (COCO) and Devry (DV), which was up $3 there, very strong group.
Mosaic Company (MOS) up $10.55. Third quarter earnings jumped to $1.17 from only a dime last year. Revenues shot up 68 percent and the company's upbeat on the fertilizer sales outlook.
That had a very positive impact on the fertilizer stocks like Agrium (AGU), CF Industries (CF) doing very well and Potash (POT) of Saskatchewan up $3.22.
Allegheny Technology (ATI), the specialty metals company, up $8.95 a share. There's takeover speculation and U.S. Steel has been mentioned as the possible suitor.
LDK Solar Co (LDK) gained $4.78. It signed a six-year wafer supply pact with a Greek firm and a four-year pact with Arise Corp. of Canada. Just yesterday it signed a 10-year pact with a firm in India, so they're doing land office business.
AZZ Inc (AZZ) tumbling $6.62. Fourth quarter earnings were a bit higher, $0.60 versus $0.58 last year, but revenues were below Street estimates and the company's backlog for business has dropped.
Landry's Restaurants (LNY) up $2.61, even though the chairman cut its buyout bid to take the firm private. He cut its bid from $23.50 down to $21 a share.
NASDAQ's most active, Apple (AAPL) up $1.47.
First Solar (FSLR) up $26.40. Speculation that tax subsidies for renewable energy may be extended, had the whole group strong.
Research in Motion (RIMM) down $2.59.
Google (GOOG) up nearly $16 a share.
Baidu.com (BIDU) a $7.25 gain.
Microsoft (MSFT) edged up $0.16. After the close, the company said it's evaluating its takeover bid for Yahoo! and may lower it from $31 a share.
Yahoo! (YHOO) in after hours trading dropped $1.10 to $27.26 on that news.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) $0.16 gain there.
Oracle (ORCL) a $0.33 loss.
Intel (INTC) dropped $0.06.
Nvidia (NVDA) off $1.20 per share.
Riverbed Technology (RVBD) fell $1.77. The company lowered its first quarter outlook after failing to close on four or five business deals it was working on.
And those are the stocks in the news tonight.
