Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Thursday, September 18, 2008
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PAUL KANGAS: The huge infusion of funds by the global central banks had buyers out of hiding on Wall Street this morning. The Dow soared just over 200 points at the opening and the NASDAQ jumped 42 points. The rally fell apart after oil surged toward $100 a barrel while the August leading indicators fell 0.5 percent, and 10,000 new weekly jobless claims were reported. By 1:00 p.m., the Dow down 136 points. That news that the Treasury was considering options to solve the credit crunch set off an explosive late rally. And the Dow Industrial Average closed with a gain of 410.03 at 11,019.69. The NASDAQ Composite jumped 100.25, ending at 2,199.10. While the Standard & Poor's 500 Index vaulted 50.12 points to 1,206.51. In the bond market, the 10-year note fell 1 8/32 to 103 18/32, putting the yield at 3.57 percent.
New York Exchange volume leader on 49.5 million shares, Citigroup (C), up $2.80, after trading as low as $12.85 today. Reportedly it's eyeing Washington Mutual as a possible takeover. Then came Morgan Stanley (MS) with an $0.80 gain. It traded as low as $11.79. I would hardly call that an orderly market. Reportedly Morgan Stanley is in official talks about merging with Wachovia. And it is also trying to raise capital from the Chinese government.
American International Group (AIG), a $0.66 gain. As you heard, Kraft (KFT) will replace it in the Dow 30. Let's have a look at Kraft stock and see what happened to it, up $1.09 today. And it looks like it's doing all right these days.
Then we Bank of America (BAC) with a gain of $3.38. A lot of nice comebacks here.
General Electric (GE) up $1.71, was fifth in Big Board volume.
JPMorgan Chase (JPM) up $4.53.
And a $5.38 gain on Wachovia (WB) on those rumors it is talking with Morgan Stanley..
Wells Fargo (WFC) gained $3.57.
Ford Motor (F) $0.34 gain.
And Washington Mutual (WM), which apparently has put itself up for sale, rose $0.98 a share. State Street (STT) closed down $5.75, but get this, it traded as low as $29.26 today. That's on fear that the company's business could be hurt by many mutual funds for which it does custodial work because they face perhaps declining assets. Also the company's lucrative securities lending business could be hurt by short-selling restrictions.
And the stocks below it, Bank New York Mellon (BK), Fed Investors (FII), and Northern Trust (NTRS), all are in that same business. Northern Trust, however, did very well, made a nice comeback today.
Comerica (CMA), up $5.23, the company agreed to buy back nearly $1.5 billion of auction rate securities from its customers nationwide.
And a nice gain for Media General (MEG), up $9.64. The company had solid August sales. That stock was over $30 about a year ago. So it has come back a long way.
Rockwell Automation (ROK) edged up $0.38 today. It traded $4 lower than after Citigroup downgraded it from hold to a sell.
And Constellation Energy (CEG), which a week ago was about $58 a share, got a boost today from MidAmerican Energy, which that's a Warren Buffett company, incidentally, it's going to acquire Constellation for $26.50 cash. And the stock would -- well, it looks like the Oracle of Omaha is in the bargain-hunting mode today.
Apple (AAPL) topped the NASDAQ active, up $6.26.
A nice gain of $24.59 by Google (GOOG).
Research In Motion (RIMM) up $5.18.
Microsoft (MSFT) a $0.69 gain.
Intel (INTC) moved up $0.71 a share.
Cisco (CSCO), a $1 gain.
Qualcomm (QCOM) up $1.76.
Look at that rise in Baidu.com (BIDU), a $50.79 advance. Amgen (AMGN) down $1.74.
And then Oracle (ORCL), a $0.65 gain. But after the close, Oracle reported first-quarter earnings, $0.29, up from $0.22 a year ago, $0.02 above the Street estimate. In after-hours trading, the stock moved up $1 from the price you see here.
And that is our look at "Stocks in the News" tonight.
