Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
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PAUL KANGAS: Stocks on Wall Street went into near free fall this morning amid a litany of bearish news like that surge in oil futures, that rise in core wholesale inflation and disappointing earnings from Home Depot. By noon, the Dow tumbled 202 points. The NASDAQ fell 33. Adding to the market's woes was a prediction from Oppenheimer banking analyst Meredith Whitney that the credit crisis will persist well into next year. So the best the Dow could do was trim a mid-afternoon 240-point loss a little bit by the final bell. The Dow Industrial Average finally closed down 199.48 at 12,828.68. The NASDAQ Composite lost 23.83 ending at 2492.26. Standard & Poor's 500 Index fell 13.23 to 1413.40. In the bond market, the 10-year note rose 13/32 to par and 25/32, putting the yield down to 3.78 percent.
Big board volume leader on 22 1/4 million shares, Citigroup (C) down $0.88. As you heard, an Oppenheimer analyst thinks the credit crisis will extend well into 2009 and of course, that sent the financial sector down across a broad front today. General Electric (GE) fell $0.68.
Pfizer (PFE) an $0.18 drop.
JPMorgan Chase (JPM) down $2.29 hurt by that Oppenheimer forecast as the crisis will continue.
Ford Motor Co (F) dropped $0.02 although the company is planning a major revamping toward a lighter truck line up because of soaring fuel costs.
Moving along in the active list, EMC Corp (EMC) down $0.69. The company is denying rumors that it wants to sell its stake in VM Ware.
And American Intl Group (AIG) lost $0.83. The stock is now at a 10- year low today on concerns over the diluting impact of raising some $20 billion in capital.
AT&T (T) down $1.14. Telecom group notably weak today.
Then came Home Depot (HD) losing $1.50 after reporting first quarter earnings drop to $0.41 from $0.53 a year ago. Same store sales were down 6 1/2 percent.
Rounding out the 10 most active, Wells Fargo & Co (WFC) down $0.43 a share.
Alcoa (AA) among other Dow stocks on the downside.
Boeing (BA) off $1.93.
But there were only two gainers of the 30 Dow stocks and as you might expect, they were energy stocks, Chevron (CVX) and ExxonMobil (XOM) with fractional advances.
3M Co (MMM) down $1.52.
Continental Resources (CLR) bucked the overall trend today with that gain of $11.78. The company's first well in the North Dakota Pakenshale (ph) area flowed much stronger than expected and the stock did very strong.
Barrick Gold (ABX) up $1.43, New York June gold contract up $14.40 to $920.20 an ounce an inflation concerns out today.
Rio Tinto plc (RTP), big mining stock, down $22.66. Morgan Stanley issued a memo suggesting nine stocks will have a 10 to 20 percent short- term correction because of over valuation. BHP Billiton stock dropped $3.80 on that memo.
Saks (SKS) down $0.93, traded as low as $12.83. First quarter earnings were strong, $0.13 versus $0.07 last year, but $0.04 below the Wall Street estimate, so down went that stock.
Medtronic (MDT) did well, up $1.08. It traded as high as $49.88. Fourth quarter earnings came in at $0.78, $0.06 above the Wall Street consensus. The company said all of its units did well.
And then Exelon (EXC), the big Chicago-based utility holding company, up $2.24. Credit Suisse upgraded it from "neutral" to "out perform."
Humana (HUM) up $3.31. Goldman Sachs added it to its "buy" list.
And then Health Net (HNT) was up $1.91 on takeover speculation.
NASDAQ's volume leader, Apple (AAPL) up $2.30.
Followed by Microsoft (MSFT) down $0.70.
Research in Motion (RIMM) up $0.97.
Google (GOOG) rose $1.08.
Intel (INTC) $0.79 decline.
Then Baidu.com (BIDU) up $1.13.
Dryships (DRYS) down $5.75 despite higher first quarter earnings, $4.13, $0.08 above the Wall Street estimate.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) $0.52 loss.
And First Solar (FSLR) up $3.16.
Tenth in NASDAQ volume, Qualcomm (QCOM) down $1.29.
Those are the stocks in the news tonight.
