Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
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PAUL KANGAS: Wall Street had to contend with a larger-than-expected 1.1 percent jump in March producer prices early today. But stocks managed gains nevertheless early on, with the help of solid earnings from Johnson & Johnson and banks like Regions Financial and M&T. The Dow rose 60 points at the outset of trading, with the NASDAQ index up 7 points.
That surge in oil prices turned stocks lower at midday, but then a report detailing a rebound in New York regional manufacturing activity helped the market rebound itself to a positive close. The Dow Industrial Average ended up 60.41 points higher, at 12,362.47. The NASDAQ composite gained 10.22, ending at 2,286.04. Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 6.11, ending at 1,334.43.
In the bond market, the 10-year note fell 23/32 to 99 5/32, putting the yield at 3.60 percent.
Most active New York Exchange issue -- General Electric (GE), moving up $0.23 on 20.5 million shares. Then came Citigroup (C), with a $0.29 gain, followed by Ford Motor (F), up $0.10.
Bank of America (BAC) held steady. And then Wachovia (WB) down $0.13, was fifth in volume.
Pfizer (PFE) a $0.15 gainer. Freddie Mac (FRE), $0.85 advance there. The government's housing oversight agency said Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae (FNM) still need supervision, despite their efforts to build liquidity in the mortgage market. Fannie Mae stock, incidentally, moved up $0.61 to $25.95.
JP Morgan (JPM), $0.62 gain. Delta Air Line (DAL) losing $1.32. You heard the details. Northwest (NWA) fell $0.94. Shareholders there get one and a quarter shares of Delta, and today that would have been worth $11.45 to Northwest holders.
EMC Corp (EMC), a $0.47 drop there.
Moving along to other movers. Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), not much of a mover, only $0.09 loss, but traded as high as $66.02. The company said a weak dollar helped its first-quarter earnings go to $1.26, $0.06 above the Street estimate, and well up from $0.88 a year ago. Not much movement in the stock.
Washington Mutual (WM), $0.31 gain after the close. Company in with a first-quarter loss of $1.40. The Street was expecting a loss of only $1.05, and that's versus $0.86 in earnings last year. In after-hours trading, the stock didn't do much. Maybe up $0.02.
M&T Bank (MTB) had a good day, up $5.11. First-quarter earnings jumped to $1.94 from only what the Street thought, which was $1.55. But $0.26 of those earnings due to Visa's strong March initial public offering.
Regions Financial (RF) up $1.26. Higher earnings there first quarter, $0.48 up from $0.45 last year. And Standard & Poor's upgraded the stock from a sell to a hold.
RehabCare Group (RHB) up $2.24. The Stifel Nicholas brokerage upgraded it from a hold to a buy rating.
Avnet (AVT) down $3.95. Company sees third-quarter results excluding restructuring charges at $0.74 to $0.76, well down from the Street estimate of $0.87 a share. The company says all of this is due to some big customer orders which have been delayed. And also, Raymond James downgraded the stock from strong buy to outperform.
Norhtrop Grumman (NOC) down $5.27. The company will take a first- quarter pre-tax charge of $0.61 to $0.69 a share due to delays in one of its ship building programs.
Apple (AAPL) topped the active list on NASDAQ, with a $0.60 gain.
First Solar (FSLR) up $13.22. Broadpoint brokerage boosted its price target from $270 to $315 a share.
Google (GOOG) down $4.82.
Research in Motion (RIMM) an $0.18 gain.
Intel (INTC) up $0.22 in after-hours on the better-than-expected revenues. It traded (ph) as high at $22.66 and made a nice move.
Baidu.com (BIDU), $0.78 loss.
Cisco (CSCO), $0.20 drop.
Microsoft (MSFT), $0.19 gain.
Crocs (CROX), the footwear company, down $7.68. It cut its first- quarter guidance from $0.46 to as much as $0.05 per share loss.
And then Oracle (ORCL) was up $0.32.
Charles Schwab (SCHW) gained $1.64. First-quarter earnings, $0.26 up from $0.19 a year ago, in line with estimates, but the company said it opened 113,000 new accounts in the first quarter. Pretty good pace there.
And those are the stocks in the news tonight.
