Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
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PAUL KANGAS: Wall Street opened with a rollicking rally as many investors hailed Merrill's house-cleaning as a positive step toward coming to grips with the credit crunch. A sharp decline in oil prices was another factor in lifting the Dow 175 points by mid-day, with the NASDAQ up 49 points. An unexpected rise in July consumer confidence and plenty of short covering by the bears kept the rally alive this afternoon and stocks ended at the day's best levels. The Dow Jones Industrial Average surged to a closing gain of 266.48 at 11,397.56. The NASDAQ Composite shot up 55.40 to 2,319.62. Standard & Poor's 500 Index jumped 28.83 to 1,263.20. In the bond market, the 10-year note lost 8/32 to 98 21/32, lifting the yield to 4.04 percent.
Not surprisingly, volume leader on the big board trading a hefty 60 million shares was Merrill Lynch (MER) and doing well, up $1.92. As you heard, it's purging itself of a lot of troubled securities and selling $8.5 billion in its own common stock at $22.50 a share. All of this news seemed to help the whole banking group.
Citigroup (C) up $1.02.
XL Capital Ltd (XL) down $0.42. This company is selling 125 million of its common shares at $16 a piece and will shed its 46 percent stake in Security Capital Corp.
Bank of America (BAC) doing well, up $4.16.
Washington Mutual (WM) in there with a $0.49 gain.
And some other good stocks gained by banks like Wachovia (WB) up $2.07.
Wells Fargo (WFC) up $2.53.
American Intl Group (AIG) participating in the rally, up $1.89.
JPMorgan Chase (JPM) did well, up $3.09.
And then General Electric (GE), tenth in volume, edging up $0.71.
U.S. Steel (X) up $20.43, a lot of good news today for big steel. Second quarter earnings, $5.65 versus $2.54 a year ago on a 60 percent jump in revenues and the company is boosting its quarterly dividend by $0.05 to $0.30 a share. Standard & Poor's upgraded it from "buy" to "strong buy." All this news on big steel had a very positive impact on the whole group.
AK Steel Holding (AKS), Nucor (NUE), Reliance Steel (RS) and Steel Dynamics (STLD) all doing well on the upside.
Moving along we see the airlines among transportation stocks of all sorts doing well because of the sharp drop in oil. AMR (AMR)
Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNI) representing the rails, up $4.42.
Con-way (CNW), the trucking company, up $2.38.
And Fed-Ex (FDX) which uses a lot of oil, up $4.08 itself.
Colgate-Palmolive (CL) up $5.59. Second quarter earnings $0.98, well above $0.84 last year and those earnings were $0.04 above the Street estimate. Sales were up a very respectable 16 percent.
Agco (AG), the farm equipment company, up $6.58. Second quarter earnings $1.34, way up $0.67 a year ago and sales rose 27 percent.
Arvinmeritor (ARM) up $2.15. The automotive parts manufacturer more than tripled its third quarter earnings, $0.77 versus only $0.25 last year and sales were up 18 percent. Kaydon (KDN) tumbling $7.64. The company makes bearings and filters, things like that. Then slightly higher second quarter earnings, $0.64 versus $0.61 last year, but profit margins fell a bit and the company sees a tough time trying to meet its 2008 earnings target, down went the stock on that news.
Fresh del Monte (FDP) down $3.57. Second quarter earnings sank to only $0.87 from $1.18 last year. On the upside, McGraw-Hill Companies (MHP) up $2.56. Second quarter earnings, $0.66, down from $0.79 a year ago, but a penny better than expected and the company is upbeat on the second half. Good gainer percentage wise, Headwaters (HW) up $2.53. Third quarter earnings, $0.31, way down from $0.98 last year, but $0.07 above the Street estimate and the company's clean coal sales have been very strong.
NASDAQ's most active Apple (AAPL) up $2.68.
Amgen (AMGN) up $1.80. Good earnings out after the close yesterday as we reported and also news its osteoporosis treatment looks very promising. Research in Motion (RIMM) up $2.55.
Microsoft (MSFT) $0.61 gain.
Google (GOOG) up nearly $6 a share.
Qualcomm (QCOM) gained $1.50.
And Intel (INTC) edging up $0.56.
Baidu.com (BIDU) up $13.76.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) up $0.44.
And First Solar (FSLR) was up $10.67. Providence Service (PRSC) plummeting $9.20. The company provides social services to governments and it appears a lot of budget cuts could hurt their earnings. The company itself cut second quarter guidance from $0.38 at a high to $0.28 a share at best now.
And then Veeco Instruments (VECO) up $1.93, nice move. Second quarter earnings more than tripled, $0.16 versus only $0.05 last year. Revenues up 16 percent.
Those are the stocks in the news tonight.
