Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
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PAUL KANGAS: Bargain hunters were on the prowl this morning, as Wall Street opened sharply higher in the wake of yesterday's drubbing. The morning rally had enough volume and positive breadth to bring more buyers off the sidelines. By noon, the Dow was up 290 points and the NASDAQ up 73 points. Growing confidence that Congress would soon approve a compromise rescue plan added to the market's upward momentum this afternoon, sending prices to the day's best levels at the closing bell. The Dow Industrial Average ended up 485.21 points at 10,850.66. The NASDAQ Composite jumped 98.60 to 2,082.33. While the Standard & Poor's 500 vaulted 58.35 points, ending at 1,164.74. In the bond market, the 10-year note slid 2 3/32 to 101 14/32, putting the yield up to 3.82 percent.
The most active New York Exchange issue, on 64.5 million shares, Wachovia (WB), rebounding $1.66 after yesterday's $8 drop when it announced it was selling its banking assets to Citigroup for $2.2 billion.
Citigroup (C) itself a nice gain of $2.76.
GE (GE) rebounded $2.40.
Pfizer (PFE), a $0.79 gain.
JPMorgan Chase (JPM), in the strong banking group, up $5.70.
American International Group (AIG) edged up $0.83.
Bank of America (BAC) up $4.75.
IBM (IBM) very active, up $2.50.
AT&T (T), a $0.17 gain.
And then no change at all in Sprint Nextel (S).
Wells Fargo (WFC) up $4.28. The Baird brokerage upgraded it to neutral from underperform because of the company's top tier credit rating. Nice move in the stock today.
Sovereign Bancorp (SOV) up $1.62, a big percentage move. This is the largest remaining savings and loan, and it hired Paul Perrault as its new CEO. The Sandler O'Neill brokerage upgraded the stock from sell to now a hold recommendation.
Anadarko Petroleum (APC) up $3.65. The company says most of all its deep water Gulf of Mexico oil platforms and Gulf Coast properties are operational in the wake of Hurricane Ike. Also the company announced it has an oil discovery off the Brazilian coast.
Huntsman Corporation (HUN) up $5.25. A Delaware court ordered private equity firm Apollo Management to honor its $28 a share agreement to acquire Huntsman. Nice move in that stock today.
Genworth Financial (GNW) up $3.61. The company is considering the spin-off of its U.S. mortgage insurance business.
And then Hartford Financial Services (HIG) tumbling $9.01. Investors are concerned about the company's financial strength in the current tough credit market environment. And Fitch downgraded its offering on the stock to just a negative.
Allied Capital Corp. (ALD) down $1.75. The company's Ciena Capital unit has filed for bankruptcy, and that will hurt earnings on Allied, no doubt.
Airgas (ARG) up $5.30. The Baird brokerage upgraded it from neutral to outperform.
Timken Company (TKR), the roller bearing firm, up $3.78. The company boosted its third-quarter earnings estimate from $0.65 to $0.70, all the way up to $1 to as much as $1.10 a share.
Fluor Corporation (FLR) gaining nearly $7. DA Davidson brokerage upgraded it from neutral to buy.
And gave the same upgrade to Jacobs Engineering (JEC), whose stock jumped $6.71 to $54.31.
Apple (AAPL) topped the NASDAQ actives, up $8.40 after plunging nearly $23 a share yesterday.
And Google (GOOG) closed up $19.52. The NASDAQ is investigating some erroneous trades just before the close that had the stock as low as $320. Those trades obviously were cancelled.
Microsoft (MSFT) up $1.68.
Research In Motion (RIMM) gained $6.57.
Intel (INTC) up $1.46. The Piper Jaffray brokerage upgraded Intel from neutral to a buy recommendation.
Cisco (CSCO), a $0.77 gain.
Qualcomm (QCOM) up $3.09.
Oracle (ORCL) up $1.54.
Amazon.com (AMZN) up $9.41.
And then 10th in volume was Amgen (AMGN) with a gain of $3.77.
Those are the "Stocks in the News" tonight.
