Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Thursday, August 14, 2008
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PAUL KANGAS: Wall Street's blue chips had a negative reaction to the consumer inflation report at the opening today, but managed solid gains by the end of trading. The Dow fell 30 points at the outset. But better than expected earnings from Wal-Mart and a drop in oil prices helped stocks reverse course. At noon the Dow was up 120 points and the NASDAQ up 24. A firm dollar on positive comments from Goldman Sachs helped stocks hold their gains throughout most of the afternoon. But then some late selling blunted the rally a bit. The Dow Jones Industrial Average still closed up 82.97 at 11,615.93. The NASDAQ Composite was up 25.05 at 2453.67, while the Standard & Poor's 500 Index gained 7.10 or 1.0 I should say at 1292.93. Over in the bond market, the 10-year note gained 11/32 to par and 27/32, lowering the yield to 3.90 percent.
Big board volume leader on a fairly firm banking group, Bank of America (BAC) up $1.32 on 10.4 million shares.
Followed by Citigroup (C) $0.27 gain there.
Kraft Foods (KFT) down $0.17.
Wells Fargo (WFC) an $0.88 advance.
JPMorgan (JPM) a $0.90 gain there.
General Electric (GE) gained $0.21.
Pfizer (PFE) moving up $0.14.
Wachovia (WB) a $1 gainer even.
Ford Motor Co (F) up $0.22. Today, Ford began producing its new compact called the Fiesta.
And then tenth in volume, Co Vale do Rio (RIO), the big Brazilian mining company, up $0.01.
Wal-Mart (WMT) ended with a gain of $0.22 after trading as high as $58.90 this morning. Second quarter operating earnings came in at $0.86, up from $0.75 a year ago, $0.02 above the Street consensus. Sales in the U.S., excluding fuel, 4.5 percent to the plus, 5 percent including fuel. And the company is a little cautious about the third quarter. Standard & Poor's however did repeat a "buy" recommendation on Wal-Mart.
Lehman (LEH) up $0.63. After the close, George Soros announced that he's boosted his stake in Lehman from General Dynamics (GD)
McDermott International (MDR)
Shaw Group (SGR)
Flowers Foods (FLO)
CVR Energy (CVI)
PMI Group (PMI)
Estee Lauder (EL)
JM Smucker (SJM)
Invesco (IVZ)
Apple (AAPL)
Research in Motion (RIMM)
Google (GOOG)
Microsoft (MSFT)
Intel (INTC)
Cisco (CSCO)
Qualcomm (QCOM)
Amgen (AMGN)
Oracle (baidu.com (BIDU)
Network Appliances (NTAP)
Urban Outfitters (URBN)
And those are the stocks in the news tonight.
