Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Friday, April 11, 2008
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PAUL KANGAS: Wall Street took an early tumble on those disappointing reports of rising import prices and consumer sentiment and of course, GE's lower earnings and cautious outlook. After an hour of trading, the Dow was off 156 points, the NASDAQ down 31 points. The market stabilized for the next few hours, but then began to slide again as investors bailed out on concern the GE earnings drop was a precursor of things to come. So amid the gloom, the market ended near its lowest level of the day. The Dow Industrial Average closed off 256.56 points at 12,325.42. This week, it rose twice and fell three times for a net loss of 284 points exactly. The NASDAQ Composite fell 61.46 to 2,290.24 today. It rose only once this week and lost 80.74 points overall. Standard & Poor's 500 dropped 27.72 to 1332.83 today and it fell 37.57 points for the week overall. In the bond market, the 10-year note gained 20/32 to par and 6/32, putting the yield at 3.48 percent.
No surprise, big board volume leader was General Electric (GE), trading a hefty 84 3/4 million shares. The stock down $4.70. That loss caused 38 points in the Dow's 256-point loss. And of course, Goldman Sachs removed it from the "buy" list. The company still sees second quarter earnings bouncing back to $0.53 to $0.55 a share. Credit Suisse also downgraded the stock to "neutral." Citigroup (C) $0.35 loss there.
And then Wells Fargo & Co (WFC) $0.55 drop.
JPMorgan Chase (JPM) fell $1.33.
$0.47 loss in Washington Mutual (WM). Analysts at Goldman Sachs say Washington may have to set aside $14 billion this year for credit losses. That works out to $3.30 a share in the red.
Pfizer (PFE) $0.47 drop there.
$0.75 loss in Bank of America (BAC).
Ford Motor Co (F) dropped a nickel a share.
SprintNextel (S) $0.11 loss.
Motorola (MOT) completing this blizzard of minus signs, a $0.07 drop there.
Blackrock (BLK) Class "A" down $12.89. Wachovia downgraded it from "out perform" to "market perform," saying any easing in the credit crisis will cause investors to switch to a less-defensive money manager than Blackrock.
We had a good gain in Continental Resources (CLR), up $2.79. That's on a report the company's Bakkon field in North Dakota and Montana has three to 4.3 billion recoverable barrels of oil.
Hershey Co (HSY) down $2.46. Sanford Bernstein brokerage downgraded it from "market perform" to "under perform" due to the higher commodity prices we're seeing this year.
Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF) off $3.32. JPMorgan downgraded it from "over weight" to "neutral" partly because of the drop in consumer sentiment we heard about.
Western Digital (WDC) down $2.22. Goldman Sachs cut its price target from $36 to $33 a share on that one.
And Seagate Technology (STX) off $1.09. Goldman Sachs cut its price target from $27.50 down to $25 a share.
Johnson Controls (JCI) dropped $1.61. JPMorgan downgraded it from "over weight" to "neutral" citing slowing North American construction orders.
And then Smith International (SII) down $2.25. The company's in the oil drilling equipment business. Citigroup downgraded it from "buy" to "hold" citing little upside potential for the stock.
Ihop (IHP) did well, up $1.61. First quarter same store sales up a respectable 3.7 percent from a year ago.
Apple (AAPL) topped the NASDAQ active list, losing $7.41.
Followed by Research in Motion (RIMM) off $4.83.
Google (GOOG) down $11.63.
Microsoft (MSFT) fell $0.83.
Baidu.com (BIDU) $7.77 loss there.
Intel (INTC) down $0.84.
And what's this, a gainer, Millennium Pharmaceutical (MLNM) up $0.05. Of course, Takada of Japan is taking it over at $25 a share cash.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) down $0.66.
First Solar (FSLR) down $2.90.
And sellers took a slice out of Intuitive Surgical (ISRO) as it lost $20.30. First quarter earnings for Surgical are due out next Thursday.
Eurobancshares (EUBK), this is a Puerto Rican bank, up $1.31. The Keefe Bruyette and Woods brokerage upgraded it from "market perform" to "out perform."
And then Ixia (XXIA) down $1.35. The company's in Internet test systems and out with a disappointing first quarter guidance of $0.03 to $0.04 a share and that's down from the previous forecast of $0.04 to $0.07 a share.
Those are the stocks in the news tonight.
