Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Monday, August 25, 2008
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PAUL KANGAS: The better than expected demand for Freddie's bill offering today had little impact on Wall Street. Stocks opened sharply lower on continuing concerns about the credit crisis and the slumping housing industry. The Dow fell to a 212-point loss by noontime when NASDAQ was down 48 points. An uptick in oil prices kept stocks broadly lower throughout the afternoon and the market ended near the day's lowest levels. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed off 241.81 at 11,386.25. The NASDAQ Composite tumbled 49.12, ending at 2365.59. Standard & Poor's 500 down 25.36 at 1266.84. Over in the bond market, the 10-year note gained 24/32 to 101 25/32, putting the yield at 3.78 percent.
Big board volume leader on 17 1/2 million shares, Freddie Mac (FRE) moving up $0.48, traded as high as $3.53. As we heard, the firm sale (ph) $2 billion in short-term bills, had better than expected demand.
Ford Motor Co (F) a $0.06 loss.
Wamu (WM) $0.23 loss there.
And Citigroup (C) down $0.53. You just heard about Robert Rubin.
And then Fannie Mae (FNM) up $0.19. That's the third consecutive closing gain for Fannie Mae stock.
Moving along in the actives, General Electric (FE) lost $.80.
And Pfizer (PFE) down $0.24.
Bank of America (BAC) down $1.25.
American Intl Group (AIG) fell $1.09. Credit Suisse cut its third quarter estimates that result and (ph) lowered the price target on AIG stock from $30 to $22 a share, rates the stock just "neutral."
Wachovia (WB), tenth in volume, lost $0.44.
Some of the Dow stocks that caused the sharp drop, the 241 drop in the Industrial Average today, (Caterpillar (CAT), Chevron (CVX), IBM (IBM), 3M (MMM)). These five stocks alone accounted for 80 points of the Dow's 241- point loss. Boeing (BA) incidentally is trying to avoid a strike.
Anadarko Petroleum (APC) closed down $0.81, but after the close, the company said it's going to buy back $5 billion of its own stock. In after hours trading, I saw the stock up to $59.21 a share.
LDK Solar Co (LDK) moving up $4.24. The company said it sees 2009 wafer shipments could bring in as much as $3 billion in revenues. That would be up from $1.75 billion this year, quite an improvement.
Toro Co (TTC) up another $2.18. It was up nearly $3 Friday after reporting third quarter earnings of $0.99, down from $1.02 the previous year, but $0.04 above the Wall Street estimate.
And CF Industries (CF), the fertilizer producer, up $2.38. The stock will be added to the Standard & Poor's 500 Index on a date to be announced, replacing EDS, which is being acquired as we know by Hewlett-Packard.
Cablevision Systems (CVC) down $1.51. Citigroup downgraded it from "buy" to "sell" in the belief the stock is too high.
And then Alpharma (ALO) up $1.49. Friday it was up over $10 on King Pharmaceutical's buyout bid of $33 a share, which Alpharma has rejected. Today, RBC Capital brokerage boosted its price target on Alpharma from $36 to $40 a share in the belief the company will get higher bids perhaps from Johnson & Johnson, Abbott or Cephalan or some other stock.
Hanger Orthopedic (HGR) down $1.89. The company filed with the SEC to have a stock offering of 13.6 million common shares. The company itself selling six million and shareholder groups selling 7.3 million.
Apple (AAPL) topped NASDAQ's active down $4.24.
A $4.42 loss in Research in Motion (RIMM).
Microsoft (MSFT) down $0.18.
Intel (INTC) $0.52 drop.
And Google (GOOG) down $7.58.
First Solar (FSLR) off $11.78.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) dropped a half dollar.
Qualcomm (QCOM) $1.53 loss.
Amgen (AMGN) losing a nickel.
And then Oracle (ORCL) $0.49 drop there.
Star Scientific (STSI) up $1.09, rather nice percentage move. The company won an appeal in a patent suit against RJ Reynolds regarding the curing process that is supposedly reduces harmful effects of tobacco.
And then Quest Resource (QRCP) down $2.05. The CEO has reassigned in the wake of questionable money transfers to a company he controls.
Those are the stocks in the news tonight.
