Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
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PAUL KANGAS: Wall Street opened in near freefall mode as the AIG bailout did not calm investors. Making the sell-off worse was a 6.2 percent tumble in August housing start to the lowest level in 17 years. By mid-day the Dow plunged 352 points and the NASDAQ was off 81 points. Then some half-hearted bargain buying cut the Dow's loss to 185 points in midafternoon, but a $6 spike up in oil prices sent stocks to their lows at the final bell.
The Dow Industrial Average closed of 449.36 points at 10,609.66. The NASDAQ Composite plunged 109.05 to 2,098.85. While the Standard and Poor's 500 Index tumbled 57.20, ending at 1,156.39.
In the bond market, the 10-year note climbed 2/32 to 104 25/32 putting the yield at 3.43 percent.
Far and away the most active Big Board issue, trading almost 71 million shares, was American International Group (AIG). You've heard about the developing currents (ph) there. Down $1.72 on the close, but it traded as low as $1.99 during the session.
Citigroup (C) was down $1.72 as well. And then GE (GE) losing $1.67. JP Morgan cut earnings estimates because of concerns about upcoming headwinds for the GE Capital unit.
Morgan Stanley (MS) supposedly in talks with Wachovia, down $6.95. Bank of America (BAC), a $2.35 loss there.
And then Exxon Mobil (XOM) down $1.15. It traded as high as $79.12 on that $6 spike in oil, and then came back, and that's what happened to a lot of the major oil today. Up on the spike initially, and then down later on.
Moving along, we see General Motors (GM) off $0.90. Standard & Poor's downgraded it from hold to sell, saying the near-term outlook for GM has worsened.
Then the gold stocks, the stars of the day, as gold in December contract New York up $70 an ounce, that's a record, to $850.50. Agnico Eagle (AEM) and Barrick Gold (ABX), Goldcorp (GG), and Newmount Mining (NEM) got an added boost from Standard & Poor's, which issued a strong buy, and then the SPDR Gold Trust (GLD) on the Big Board up $8.74.
Nortel Networks (NT) dropped $2.62, or almost 50 percent of its value today. The company noted that customers are cutting back and deferring investments, sees 2008 revenues down 2 to 4 percent from the year prior.
Then we see Boston Properties (BXP) down $7.16. Standard & Poor's downgraded it from buy to hold, in the belief the turmoil in the financial sector could hurt the company's Manhattan office space business.
And then the ethanol producer VeraSun Energy (VSE) tumbling $3.81. The company said it expects a third-quarter loss of $0.40 to $0.65 a share. The company also began a 20 million share offering of stock, dilutive.
Apple (AAPL) topped the active list on Nasdaq, down $12.05. Google (GOOG) losing $28.44. Research in Motion (RIMM) off $7.72. And Microsoft (MSFT) off $1.42, followed by Intel (INTC), which lost $0.93.
Elsewhere, SanDisk (SNDK) up $5.88. After the close yesterday, as we reported, Samsung made a $26 a share cash buyout bid, which the company rejected, but Goldman Sachs would be very positive if that combo came to be true. So stock is all over the place.
And that is our look at our abbreviated stock section tonight.
