Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
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PAUL KANGAS: Stocks on Wall Street showed little movement in early trading. But buyers appeared after both August consumer confidence and July new home sales posted increases. At 11:00 a.m., the Dow was up 43 points, NASDAQ up 10 points. The rally evaporated when oil prices surged on worries about hurricane Gustav. After dipping to a 40-point loss this afternoon, the blue chips did bounce back after minutes from the latest Fed meeting were released, suggesting that the rates are likely to remain steady for some time to come. The Dow Industrial Average ended up 26.62 at 11,412.87. The NASDAQ Composite was down 3.67 to 2,361.97, while the Standard & Poor's 500 Index gained 4.67 closing at 1,271.51. Over in the bond market, the 10-year note gained 1/32 to 101 26/32, putting the yield at 3.78 percent.
Big board volume leader Fannie Mae (FNM) on 23 million shares, that is the fourth consecutive closing gain for Fannie Mae.
Things looking up a little bit for Freddie Mac (FRE) too, up $0.68.
Then SAIC (SAI) or SAIC I think it's pronounced, this is a company that provides the U.S. military with engineering and technical services. The stock was today added to the Standard & Poor's madcap 400, replacing CF Industries, which is going from the 400 to the Standard & Poor's 500.
Then Ford Motor Co (F) you just heard about the conversion of that plant, down $0.06.
Pfizer (PFE) a $0.23 loss there.
Moving along in the actives, Citigroup (C) gained $0.23.
Bank of America (BAC) a $0.06 advance.
General Electric (GE) $0.05 loss.
Wamu (WM) off a penny.
And then American Intl Group (AIG) finally with an uptick on that stock.
Anadarko Petroleum (APC) did well, up $3.70. After the close yesterday, as we reported, the company plans to buy back $5 billion of its own stock and the stock is also up on a rise in oil today on concerns that hurricane Gustav may cut supplies from the Gulf of Mexico.
There were other energy stocks doing well, like EOG Resources (EOG) up $5.55. Threat of a rise in oil is helping that stock. And also researchers at Bernstein Research see the outlook for natural gas prices more favorable than for crude oil. Therefore they upgraded EOG from "under perform" to "out perform."
Let's have a look at some other strong energy stocks. Comstock Resources (CRK), Exco Resources (XCO) and Range Resources (RRC) doing well and incidentally, the Howard Wile (ph) analyst started coverage on Range Resources with an "out perform" in the belief the company's poised for enhanced profit margins and growth.
Coach (COH) up $1.78. The board has approved a $1 billion stock buyback which will be completed by June 26 in the year 2010.
Darden Restaurants (DRI) tumbling $4.01. The company sees first quarter earnings of $0.60 to $0.62, well below the Street estimate of $0.75 and it also cut its 2009 full year same store sales estimate to just flat or maybe up only 1 percent at best.
Big Lots (BIG) losing $2.34. Second quarter earnings $0.32, well above last year's $0.22 and a nickel above the Street estimate, but the company sees second half same store sales trading (ph those of the first half, not good news there.
Apple (AAPL) topped NASDAQ's most active with a gain of $1.09.
Google (GOOG) down $8.85. Inventor Judah Klausner is suing Google and Verizon and some other companies on alleged patent infringement of his e- mail invention.
Research in Motion (RIMM) was up $0.15.
Microsoft (MSFT) $0.39 drop there.
Intel (INTC) $0.18 gain.
More active stock, baidu.com (BIDU) down $12.28.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) lost a dime.
Qualcomm (QCOM) $0.38 loss.
Marvell Technology Group (MRVL) down $1.04. Jefferies brokerage downgraded it from "buy" to just a "hold" rating.
And then Dell (DELL), which was up $0.13.
Sanderson Farms (SAFM), the big poultry producer, losing $4.28. Third quarter out today with a loss of $0.18 versus earnings of $1.51 a year ago and that had the whole food sector under some pressure today.
Let's have a look at some other poultry and food producers, Pilgrim's Pride (PPC) down $2.67.
Smithfield Foods (SFD) losing $1.62. Smithfield itself had a first quarter loss of $0.21 a share.
And then Tyson Foods (TSN) down as well.
Broadcom (BRCM) losing $1.25. Oppenheimer downgraded it from "out perform" to "market perform."
And that's our look at stocks in the news tonight.
