Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Tuesday, June 03, 2008
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PAUL KANGAS: Fed chief Bernanke's speech gave stocks an opening lift as the dollar firmed up while oil futures headed lower on Wall Street. In choppy morning trading, the Dow managed to post a 31-point gain at noon with the NASDAQ up 20 points. The upturn didn't attract a following because of those concerns we told you about that Lehman may need to raise more capital. By 2:30 this after, the Dow had fallen to a 150-point loss. Late buying however did trim the losses a bit by the final bell. So the Dow Industrial Average closed off 100.97 points at 12,402.85. The NASDAQ Composite down 11.05 at 2480.48. Standard & Poor's 500 Index lost 8.02 points to 1377.65. In the bond market, the 10-year note rose 19/32 to 99 27/32, putting the yield at 3.89 percent.
Big board volume leader on 23.4 million shares, Lehman Brothers (LEH) losing $3.22 and traded as low as $29.02. As you heard, it's considering raising billions of dollars in fresh capital to shore up its balance sheet.
Wachovia (WS) down $1.48. The bearish talk on Lehman undermined the financial sector in general today.
Citigroup (C) lost $0.04.
General Electric (GE) bucking the trend, up a nickel a share.
And then Pfizer (PFE) down $0.17.
Moving along in the active list, Bank of America (BAC) down $0.27.
AT&T (T) lost $0.57.
There you see Ford Motor Co (F) edging $0.04 higher even though its May sales were down 16 percent as you heard.
General Motors (GM) edged up $0.14, cutting truck and SUV production and it's even considering selling its Hummer division. Its May overall sales down 28 percent.
ExxonMobil (XOM) dropped $2.10, a little profit taking in the oils.
McDonald's (MCD) lost nearly $1 a share. JPMorgan made cautious comments about fast food stocks because of high fuel and high meat prices.
Monsanto (MON) up $4.59, traded as high as $136.97. BB&T capital brokerage boosted earnings estimates in reaction to skyrocketing phosphate rock prices.
CSX Corp (CSX), the big rail, down $3 a share. UBS financial downgraded it to "neutral" from "buy" despite the company's predictions for 18 to 21 percent annual earnings growth from now to the end of 2010.
Big steel, US Steel (X) up $4.70 after Deutsche Bank boosted its price target from $165 to $220 a share.
WH Energy Services (WHO) jumping $7.68. Smith International will acquire the company for $56.10 in cash plus about a half a share of Smith International stock. The whole deal works out to $93 a share for WH holders and Smith stock was down $1.18 on that acquisition news.
NCI Building (NCS) up $3.25. It's a non-residential construction firm. Second quarter earnings jumped to $0.76 from $0.31 last year. The Street estimate was only $0.32 so a lot better than expected.
American Axle & Manufacturing (AXL) down $1.54. One of its biggest customers is General Motors which is closing those four big truck and SUV plants, not good for American Axle business obviously.
Then Tyson Foods (TSN) down $1.47. South Korea will delay resumption of U.S. beef imports due to a negative public reaction. Also, Tyson is going to eradicate a flock of about 15,000 chickens in northwest Arkansas that had been exposed to a mild strain of the bird flu.
NASDAQ's most active, Apple (AAPL) down $0.73.
Followed by Google (GOOG) down $7.70.
Research in Motion (RIMM) fell $3.51.
Microsoft (MSFT) $0.49 loss there.
Intel (INTC) down $0.26 a share.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) dropped a penny.
Oracle (ORCL) up $0.23.
First Solar (FSLR) gained $1.36.
Qualcomm (QCOM) $0.71 loss.
Baidu.com (BIDU) up $4.34.
Yahoo! (YHOO) dropped $0.25. "Wall Street Journal" reports Carl Icahn will seek to remove Jerry Yang as CEO if the deal with Microsoft fails. After the close, Yahoo! pushed back its July 3rd annual shareholders' meeting to August 1st.
Then New Frontier (NOOF) down $1.54. The company had higher fourth quarter earnings, $0.08 versus $0.07 last year, but a penny below the Street estimate and it's suspending its cash dividend.
And finally, Layne Christensen (LAYN) tumbled $7.05 after posting higher first quarter profits but said poor weather hurt results at its water infrastructure unit.
