Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
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PAUL KANGAS: Stocks on Wall Street opened narrowly mixed but then headed broadly lower as investors viewed last night's earnings warning from UPS as a sign of things to come from corporate America's first quarter results. In a steady downturn, the Dow posted a 91-point loss by 1:00 p.m., with the NASDAQ Composite off 30 points. That surge in oil futures to new record highs kept the market on the defensive as the Dow fell as much as 100 points by by around 3:00 p.m. But some late buying trimmed the losses at the final bell. The Dow Industrial Average closed down 49.18 at 12,527.26. The NASDAQ lost 26.64 ending at 2322.12. Standard & Poor's 500 Index fell 11.05 to 1354.49. In the bond market, the 10-year note gained 22/32 to par and 5/32, putting the yield at 3.48 percent. Most active big board issue on 20.8 million shares, Citigroup (C) down $0.18. The company reportedly close to selling $12 billion in leveraged loans and bonds to a private equity group. Washington Mutual (WM) dropped $0.36.
Ford Motor (F) $0.19 loss.
General Electric (GE) $0.51 loss.
And then SprintNextel (S) down $0.11, not a gainer in that group.
Pfizer (PFE) was off $0.11. The company's inhalable insulin drug Exubera may be linked to causing lung cancer according to Pfizer. Its partner Nectar (ph) saw its stock plummet $1.80, down to $5.39 a share on that news.
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) after a couple of days of losses, up $0.23.
Bank of America (BAC) a $0.45 drop.
Wells Fargo (WFC) off $0.48.
And then Lehman Brothers (LEH) down $3.13. We'll have more on that in just a moment.
Boeing (BA) itself up $3.58 despite the delay in the 787 Dreamliner as you heard, but the company did reaffirm its 2008 earnings guidance and that would help the stock.
Helping this stock, Spirit Aerosystems (SPR) up nearly $3 was Boeing. A revision in a supply pact with Boeing will result in additional cash advance payments to Spirit Aerosystems.
Proctor and Gamble (PG) a $0.44 loss, even though it's boosting its quarterly dividend 14 percent from $0.35 to $0.40 a share, but Goldman Sachs still downgraded the stock from "buy" to "neutral."
And Goldman Sachs also downgraded Kimberly Clark (KMB) but in this case from "neutral" to a "sell." The stock off $1.29.
Apache Corp (APA), obviously the oils were strong today on those record high prices, up $3.89 there. Also the company had positive test results in three drilling operations in British Columbia. UBS financial boosted Apache's price target from $138 to $146 a share.
Some of the other stocks in the oil patch did well today, Hess Corp (HES), Occidental (OXY) and Sunoco (SUN) all posting decent gains.
The airline stocks in the other hand, down on those record oil prices, Continental Airlines (CAL), Delta Airlines (DAL), UAL Corp (UAUA) and US Airways (LCC) all in the minus column.
Goldman Sachs (GS) itself off $4.76. The company disclosed it has received government requests for information regarding the auction rate security market which has been frozen for the most part and the complaint of many clients of a lot of brokerages. Let's have a look at some of those stocks. Once again we see Lehman (LEH) dropped $3.13 as you saw and Morgan Stanley (MS) down $1.25.
Speaking of Morgan Stanley MSCI Inc (MXB) down $2.81. Morgan Stanley owns 81 percent and this company plans to sell 28 million shares. First quarter earnings for MSCI only $0.18, down from $0.26 last year.
Graftech Intl (GTI) up $1.34. Oppenheimer upgraded it from "market perform" to "out perform."
And then Ternium SA (TX) down $4.01 on reports that Venezuela is going to nationalize Sidor, which is a steel company that Ternium has a big stake in.
NASDAQ's most active, Apple (AAPL) down $1.40.
Google (GOOG) losing $3.62. The company and Yahoo! are testing Google's (INAUDIBLE) tool which would give the two companies 90 percent of the search ad market. The combination could foil Microsoft's bid for Yahoo! Late today, Microsoft said any agreement between Google and Yahoo! would make the search market less competitive.
Research in Motion (RIMM) down $2.82.
Baidu.com (BIDU) dropped $7.14.
And then Dell (DELL) in there with a $0.31 loss.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) down $0.43 bucking the trend.
Intel Corp (INTC) a $0.34 gain. Microsoft (MSFT) itself up $0.14.
First Solar (FSLR) down $2.12.
And then Yahoo! (YHOO) with a $0.07 gain.
And finally shares in EP Medsystems (EPMD) rose $1.45 on news the company will be acquired by St. Jude Medical for cash and stock worth $3 a share.
