Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
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PAUL KANGAS: Stocks on Wall Street fell at the opening today on continuing worry about Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae and an early rise in oil prices. Those factors sent the Dow off 40 points and the NASDAQ down two points by 10:00 a.m. When oil prices slumped on a rise in crude inventories, the Dow jumped to a 90-point gain an hour later. But renewed weakness in the financials and a rebound in oil made buyers wary. So the Dow Industrial Average closed up 68.88 at 11,417.43. The NASDAQ Composite gained 4.72 to 2,389.08, while the Standard & Poor's 500 Index rose 7.85 ending at 1,274.54. In the bond market, the 10-year note rose 10/32 to 101 20/32, putting the yield at 3.80 percent.
Big board volume leader on 32.3 million shares, Invesco Ltd (IVZ) up $0.31. That stock was added to the Standard & Poor's 500 Index after the close today, replacing IAC Interactive.
Then Freddie Mac (FRE) and Fannie Mae (FNM) both 20 percent drops on each stock and they have a lot of debt maturing in the next few months.
Citigroup (C) was up $0.30 bucking the overall trend and a lot of the banking stocks.
Ford Motor Co (F) down $0.11 a share.
And then a few more stocks on the financial scene doing better today, Bank of America (BAC) up $1.21.
Wells Fargo & Co (WFC) gained $1.13.
Then General Electric (GE) with a $0.06 loss.
JPMorgan Chase (JPM) added $1.42.
And Washington Mutual (WM), tenth in volume, showed no change on the day.
Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) up $2.47. After the close yesterday as we reported, third quarter earnings, $0.86, up from last year's $0.71, a nickel better than the Street was expecting. Revenues were up 10 percent, nice performance in the stock today.
Freeport McMoran Copper & Gold (FCX) up $6.39. Morgan Stanley made positive comments and repeated an "over weight" rating. Morgan sees higher copper prices coming down the pike.
Verifone Holdings (PAY) up $4.67. The company sees third quarter earnings revenues - I should say revenue growth of 10 percent and earnings at $0.34 to $0.35 and sees fourth quarter earnings rising to $0.36 to $0.39.
Suntech Power (STP) up $4.62. Second quarter earnings jumped to $0.38 from $0.25 a year ago on a 51 percent jump in revenue. Standard & Poor's repeated a "buy" on the stock today.
ITT Education (ESI) up $3.93. Bank of America upgraded "neutral" to "buy" on the upbeat outlook for the company's student loan business.
Officemax (OMX) losing $1.80. Executive vice president's chief financial officer Don Civgin is going to step down at the end of this month and Goldman Sachs downgraded the stock from "buy" to "neutral."
BJ's Wholesale (BJ) down $2.97 despite higher second quarter earnings of $0.61 versus $0.55 a year ago, but the company's cautious about the fourth quarter, usually its best profit quarter of the year.
And then Analog Devices (ADI) fell $2.85. Third quarter earnings, $0.44 up from $0.38 last year but a penny below the Street estimate, no room for disappointment in this market.
Apple (AAPL) up $2.31, led the active list on NASDAQ.
Google (GOOG) down $5.50.
Research in Motion (RIMM) up $4.33. Tomorrow RIMM will launch its Blackberry Bold smart phone, a little optimism about that apparently.
Intel (INTC) a $0.20 loss. The company along with Yahoo! will create web channels to run alongside TV shows.
Microsoft (MSFT) a $0.03 drop there.
Qualcomm (QCOM) $0.16 gain.
Baidu.com (BIDU) up $12.38.
First Solar (FSLR) up $14.25.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) dropped a penny.
And then IAC Interactive (IACI) was down $0.07 coming out of the Standard & Poor's 500 Index today.
Novatel Wireless (NVTL) down $2.11. The company had just a break even second quarter versus earnings of $0.25 a year ago.
And finally, Aladdin shares, Knowledge Systems (ALDN) I should say jumped $1.33 after the private equity firm Vector Capital expressed an interest in acquiring the company.
