Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Monday, June 23, 2008
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PAUL KANGAS: Wall Street tried to stage an opening technical rebound from last week's steep losses, but higher oil futures precluded any decent rally. The Dow and the NASDAQ see-sawed narrowly between plus and minus during the morning. Bearish analyst reports on the financial and auto sectors kept the market under pressure for the rest of the day, as did a late sell-off in tech stocks. So the Dow Industrial Average closed off just a third of a point at 11,842.36. The NASDAQ Composite fell 20.35 ending at 2385.74. Standard & Poor's 500 managed to edge up a fraction, 0.07 at 1318 even. Over in the bond market, the 10-year note rose 1/32 to 97 21/32, putting the yield at 4.17 percent.
Most active big board issue on 16 million shares, Citigroup (C) down $0.75. The "Wall Street Journal" reports the company will lay off about 10 percent of the 65,000 people in its investment banking division.
Then came Ford Motor Co (F) down $0.53. Lehman is widening its 2008 loss estimate from $0.63 in the red to minus $1.59 a share.
Pfizer (PFE) moved up $0.05, bucking the trend.
But Bank of America (BAC) down $1.22. Ladenburg Thalmann brokerage cut its price target on Bank America from $48 down to $39 a share.
General Electric (GE) in there, fifth in volume with a $0.02 gain.
Motorola (MOT) fell a half a dollar after Piper Jaffray brokerage downgraded it from "neutral" to "sell."
And there you see General Motors (GM) down $0.88, hitting a 33-year low in that weak auto group.
American International Group (AIG) off $1.80. An article in this week's "Barron's" financial magazine says the stock is likely to be dead money for some time to come.
AT&T (T) a nickel loss.
And then JPMorgan Chase (JPM) losing nearly $1.
United Parcel Service (UPS) closed down $0.11 in regular trading. After the close, the company cut its second quarter earnings estimate from a high of $1.04 down to $0.88 a share at best. More damage caused by high fuel costs. In after hours trading incidentally, UPS was down almost $3 from the price you see there.
CME Group (CME), the Chicago Merc, up $7.69. The company said it will pay a special $5 a share dividend and buy back up to $1.1 billion in stock following resolution of the pending merger with Nymex. Nymex stock fell $0.28 incidentally.
BCE (BCE), the old Bell Canada, up $1.94 a share. That's after Friday's Canadian supreme court decision to allow the $34 billion Canadian leveraged buyout of the firm by an investor group.
Halliburton Co (HAL) up $2.98. The company has terminated talks to acquire its British rival Expro International.
And a positive reaction by Goodrich Petroleum (GDP) up $9.59 to the company's plan to acquire additional Haynesville oil shale acreage in the state of Louisiana.
Circuit City Stores (CC) losing 21 percent of its value on investor doubts that the Blockbuster Corporation will be able to close on its $1 billion takeover bid of Circuit City.
Capitalsource (CSE), this is a real estate investment trust, down $1.96. The firm sold $1.5 billion in mortgage-backed securities and took a $36 million loss. The company may cut its dividend is the speculation.
Continental Airlines (CAL) in that very weak group, down $2.27, a 15, almost 16 percent loss.
Apple (AAPL) topped the active list on NASDAQ, losing $2.11.
Followed by Research in Motion (RIMM) down $1.50.
Then Google (GOOG) off $1.22.
Microsoft (MSFT) a $0.26 drop there.
But First Solar (FSLR) up $19.78. Lehman Brothers upgraded its price target from $280 to $335 a share.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) $0.09 drop there.
A penny loss in Intel (INTC).
Qualcomm (QCOM) fell $0.72.
Baidu.com (BIDU) off $4.03.
And tenth in volume was Oracle (ORCL) with a $0.02 loss.
Elsewhere, Barrier Therapeutics (BTRX), look at that percentage gain, almost 129 percent. The news, Stiffel (ph) labs, a private firm, will acquire the company for $4.15 a share in cash.
And those are the stocks in the news tonight.
