Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
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PAUL KANGAS: Wall Street opened on a mixed note with the Dow rising 20 points at the outset of trading, while the NASDAQ fell seven points. Try as they might, the bulls failed to find a following against that rather dismal news background of wholesale inflation and a slowing economy. By midday, the Dow was off 78 points. While the NASDAQ kept its losses rather modest, the blue chips wee undermined this afternoon by a very bearish report on the banking stocks by Goldman Sachs, saying the credit crisis won't peak until 2009. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell to a closing loss of 108.78 points at 12,160.30. The NASDAQ Composite lost 17.05 ending at 2,457.73. Standard & Poor's 500 Index was down 9.21 closing at 1,350.93. In the bond market, the 10-year note gained 20/32 to 97 12/32, putting the yield at 4.20 percent.
Big board volume leader on 17.6 million shares, Citigroup (C) losing $0.37. An analyst at Goldman Sachs said U.S. banks must raise $65 billion in additional capital on top of the $120 billion already raised. The analyst predicted the credit crisis won't peak until 2009. Goldman Sachs also cut price targets and earnings estimates for a slew of bank stocks, so the sector was very weak today as you'll see in our active list alone.
General Electric (GE) in there with an $0.11 loss.
Bank of America (BAC) there you see down $1.08.
Wachovia (WB) fell $0.97.
Pfizer (PFE) fifth in volume, dropped $0.05 a share.
Ford Motor Co (F) bucked the trend, up a dime.
Wells Fargo & Co (WFC) though down $0.98.
And Keycorp (KEY) losing $0.40.
JPMorgan Chase (JPM) off $0.90.
And Time Warner (TWX) $0.17 loss there.
Morgan Stanley (MS) down $1.70. Second quarter results are due out tomorrow. The Wall Street estimate is for $0.92 a share in earnings.
Wyeth (WYE), the big drug pharmaceutical research firm, up $2.08. The company and its partner Elan said phase II study of their Alzheimer's drug showed some promise. Elan stock was up $2.89 to $30 a share even.
Best Buy Co (BBY) down $2.42 despite first quarter earnings, $0.43 up from $0.39 last year and $0.06 above the Street estimate, but management was very cautious about the outlook and that seemed to hurt the stock.
Chicago Merc Exchange Group (CME) up $22.41. Citigroup upgraded it from "hold" to "buy" today and after the close yesterday, the Chicago Merc and Nymex got Department of Justice clearance to complete their merger without conditions. Nymex stock up $2.87 to $92.45 today.
Distribucion y Servicio D&S (DYS), better known as D&S, this is a large Chilean supermarket chain. The company said it had no explanation for the stock jump, but there is speculation around that Wal-Mart might make a buyout bid and it might be eyeing the company.
And then Genco Shipping (GNK) up $5.16, positive reaction to the company's purchase of six new dry bulk ships for $530 million. That whole dry bulk carrier segment very strong today.
Dryships (DRY), Excel Maritime (EXM), Eagle Bulk Shipping (EGLE) and General Maritime (GME) nice gains on the day.
Worthington Industries (WOR) up $1.45. The steel processing company got an upgrade from Longbow Research from "neutral" to a "buy."
And Cinemark Holdings (CNK) losing $1.28. Morgan Stanley downgraded it from "over weight" to "equal weight" on concern over the earnings shortfall that might be a result from poor theater attendance.
NASDAQ's most active Apple (AAPL) up $4.59. Piper Jaffray brokerage thinks the company will ship as many as 11 million iPods in the June quarter alone.
Research in Motion (RIMM) up $1.18.
Google (GOOG) fell $3.35 today.
First Solar (FSLR) up $4.82 there.
Microsoft (MSFT) a $0.13 loss.
Baidu.com (BIDU) fell $3.27.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) a $0.30 drop.
Intel (INTC) $0.28 loss there.
Qualcomm (QCOM) down $0.91.
And Amazon.com (AMZN) up $1.27 a share.
Mentor Graphics (MENT) nice move today, up $2.65. The company said it rejected a $16 a share buyout bid from Cadence Design Systems, said that bid was too low.
And finally, Infinera (INFN) tumbled $3.53 after drastically cutting its full year revenue growth target from 25 percent to only 10 percent. Goldman Sachs blamed the shortfall on slowing chip sales from Level 3 Communications Corp.
