Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Thursday, June 12, 2008
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PAUL KANGAS: Better than expected May retail sales gave Wall Street a nice opening rebound from yesterday's steep sell-off. A sharp early drop in oil futures also inspired buyers. Two hours into trading, the Dow was sporting a 181 point gain while the NASDAQ was up 37 points. The market held most of its gains over the next few hours with the financial sector doing well on an upgrade from Morgan Stanley. A rebound in oil futures however, caused stocks to end well below the day's best levels. The Dow Industrial Average closed up a modest 57.81 at 12,141.58. The NASDAQ rose 10.34 at 2404.35 while the Standard & Poor's 500 Index gained 4.38 at 1339.87. In the bond market, the 10-year note slid 1 4/32 to 97 9/32, putting the yield up to 4.21 percent.
Big board volume leader on 26 million shares, General Electric (GE) losing $0.78.
Citigroup (C) was up $0.68. The financial stocks were rather firm today on a Morgan Stanley upgrade from the group from "under weight" to "neutral" in the belief the worst is behind us.
Lehman Brothers (LEH) down $1.05. As you heard, the company undergoing a top management shakeup.
Washington Mutual (WM) a firm financial, up $0.58.
Similar gain from Bank of America (BAC) gaining $0.59.
Anheuser-Busch (BUD) up $3.05. As we reported yesterday, the company is evaluating ImBev's $65 a share takeover bid. After the market closed today, the "Wall Street Journal" reported Anheuser-Busch has begun preliminary talks with Mexico's Grupo Modelo brewing company about a combination that could help Anheuser thwart ImBev's takeover bid.
Keycorp (KEY) down $3.73. The company's cutting its annual dividend 50 percent from $1.50 down to $0.75 and plans to raise $1.5 billion in new equity capital.
Pfizer (PFE) in there with an $0.18 gain.
JPMorgan Chase (JPM) moved up $0.88.
Then Wells Fargo (WFC) with a $0.47 advance.
Caterpillar (CAT) did well, up $1.57. It traded as high as $81.79 today. The company's expanding production of its mining equipment with Navastar on a global basis and cutting production on on-highway truck engines in the U.S.
Well that news of the cutback is very good for Cummins (CM) since their specialty is on-highway truck engines. The stock did very well.
Archer-Daniels-Midland (ADM) down $3.76. Citigroup downgraded it from "buy" to "hold" on Midwest flooding and higher corn prices hurting ethanol sales. Also BMO Capital downgraded ADM from "out perform" to just a "market perform" rating.
Talbots (TLB) department store did well, up $2.16. The majority shareholder, AEON Corp. is providing the company with a $50 million line of credit to support its turnaround which seems to be going well.
EnerSys (ENS) up $4.78. The industrial battery maker had fourth quarter earnings nearly double last year, $0.42 versus $0.22 then and sales shot up 41 percent. Jeffries upgraded the stock on a price basis from $32 to $43.
Applied Biosystems (ABI) gaining $1.72. Invitrogen Corp. will acquire it for $38 a share, 45 percent of that cash, 55 percent stock. Invitrogen stock itself fell $4.62 on the news.
And Franklin Resources (BEN) the big asset management and mutual fund company, got an upgraded from Keefe Bruyette Woods from "market perform" to "out perform." Stock up over $5.
Apple (AAPL) topped the active list, down $7.55.
Microsoft (MSFT) up $1.12. As you heard, it's no longer talking to Yahoo! about an agreement.
Google (G00G) up $7.75.
And Yahoo! (YHOO) itself down $2.63. Now here's an update on the Yahoo! Google deal we told you about earlier. The agreement allows Yahoo! to display ads sold by Google. Yahoo! will decide which Google ads run and where. The deal's initially for four years with an option for 10 years. It's expected to bring in up to $800 million in annual revenue for Yahoo!
Qualcomm (QCOM) up $2.67. The company boosted the outlook for its June quarter, nice gain in the stock.
Research in Motion (RIMM) down $2.20.
Then First Solar (FSLR) up $8.61.
Followed by Intel (INTC) $0.24 advance there.
And Cisco Systems (CSCO) $0.31 gain.
And Baidu.com (BIDU) fell $3.56 per share.
And that is our look at stocks in the news tonight.
