Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Wednesday, August 06, 2008
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PAUL KANGAS: Freddie Mac's big loss set a negative tone for early trading on Wall Street today. By 11:00 a.m., the Dow posted a 76 point loss and the NASDAQ was off 14 points. As oil prices retreated, stocks recovered nicely. Tech stocks were also strong thanks to Cisco's solid results out last night. At 3:00 p.m., the Dow was up 68 points, but it did falter a bit in the last hour. So the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed up 40.30 at 11,656.07. The NASDAQ Composite gained 28.54. The Standard & Poor's 500 rose 4.31 to 1289.19. Over in the bond market, the 10-year note lost 10/32 to 98 17/32, putting the yield up to 4.06 percent.
Big board volume leader on 17 million shares, SprintNextel (S) losing $1.21 after reporting a second quarter loss of $0.12 a share versus earnings of a penny a year ago. Revenues actually fell 11 percent and the company plans a $3 billion offering of convertible preferred stock which would be dilutive to earnings of course.
Ford Motor (F) a $0.15 drop.
Pfizer (PFE) up $0.04.
Wachovia (WB) fell $0.65.
Bank of America (BAC) down $0.13, taking off a little what they gained yesterday.
Wells Fargo (WFC) off $0.89.
$0.25 drop in General Electric (GE).
Motorola (MOT) a nickel loss.
Ambac Financial (ABK) down $1.12. After the close, the company said its second quarter results, excluding one-time gains, when they had a loss of $1.83 a share. Standard & Poor's repeated a "sell." The stock in after hours trading dropped about a nickel a share.
And Freddie Mac (FRE) down $1.55. As you heard, second quarter loss of $1.63, plans a big dividend cut from $0.25 down to a nickel quarterly.
Freeport McM Copper & Gold (FCX) nice move up, $8.67. Citigroup added it to its top pick list, repeated a "buy" with a $142 a share target price. But later in the day, Deutsche Bank cut its target price from $145 to $135.
Computer Sciences (CSC) down $2.04. First quarter earnings nicely higher, $0.79 versus $0.61 a year ago, but the Stiefel Nicholas brokerage later in the day downgraded it from "buy" to a "hold" recommendation.
Time Warner Cable (TWC) off $1.56. Second quarter earnings flat, $0.28, same as last year. The Street estimate was $0.04 higher than that.
Fidelity Natl Info Svc (FIS) up $3.53. Second quarter earnings $0.36, nicely above $0.29 last year. Sales were up a very good 27 percent.
Resmed (RMD) up $4.84. Fourth quarter earnings $0.40, up from last year's $0.35 and a 23 percent rise in revenues.
Then we see Plains Exploration (PXP) gaining $3.98. Second quarter earnings jumped to $1.84 from only $0.35 last year, $0.23 better than the Street was expecting. Standard & Poor's upgraded the "hold" to "buy."
Quanta Services (PWR) up $1.93, $0.26 in second quarter earnings up from $0.18 a year ago and revenues jumped over 70 percent in the period.
National Financial Partners (NFP) tumbling $4.53. Second quarter earnings $0.25, a penny less than last year and the company sees challenging life insurance underwriting market for high net worth sector in the second half of this year.
Apple (AAPL) topped the active list on NASDAQ, up $3.55. Yesterday it was up over $7 on a UBS "buy" recommendation.
Research in Motion (RIMM) up $5.32.
And then Cisco Systems (CSCO) $1.28. Pacific Growth Securities brokerage upgraded it from "neutral" to "buy," mainly because of yesterday's solid earnings report.
Microsoft (MSFT) up $0.81, plans a big stock buyback.
Google (GOOG) up $6.49.
Moving along in the active list on NASDAQ, we see Intel (INTC) down $0.22.
Followed by Oracle (ORCL) up $0.65.
Qualcomm (QCOM) down $0.17.
Baidu.com (BIDU) gained $8.51.
Priceline.com (PCLN) tumbling just over $20 a share. Second quarter earnings were nicely higher, $1.55 versus last year's $1.11, but Citigroup cut its price target from $142 down to $130 a share on the company's lower than expected third quarter bookings estimate.
And finally Isolagen (ILE) soared $1.08 or 208 percent on news its wrinkle treatment met all primary endpoints in late stage trials.
