Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
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PAUL KANGAS: Wall Street looked ready to build upon yesterday's huge rally as the Dow shot up another 400 points at the open. But that's not the way the day ended. The early spike attracted profit-takers. And by noontime, the NASDAQ was trading lower and the Dow was just barely holding its gains. A modest pickup in selling pushed the Dow down as much as 150 points and the NASDAQ off 65 points by mid-afternoon, but then some late buying trimmed the losses a bit. The Dow Industrial Average closed of 76.62 at 9,310.99. The NASDAQ down 65.24, ending at 1,779.01. Standard & Poor's 500 down 5.34 at 998.01. Over in the bond market, the 10-year note fell 1 20/32 to 99 11/32, lifting the yield to 4.08 percent.
Big Board volume leader on 46.25 million shares, Citigroup (C) moving up $2.87.
Citigroup upgraded a number of other banks, including Bank of America (BAC), which was up $3.74 itself.
GE (GE) in their with a $0.15 loss.
National City (NCC) up $0.80.
Exxon Mobil (XOM), a slight decline in oil today, off $0.62 there.
Morgan Stanley (MS) was up $3.84. The Wall Street Journal reports the company will get $10 billion in capital from the U.S. Treasury.
JPMorgan Chase (JPM) losing $1.28, maybe a little bit of investor nervousness. Its results are due out tomorrow.
But some of the other big financial stocks did well. New York Mellon (BK), and Goldman Sachs (GS), Merrill Lynch (MER), State Street (STT), all nice, nice gains.
Back to the active board, and with Wachovia (WB) edging up $0.46.
And Wells Fargo (WFC), whose earnings are due out tomorrow, up $3.12.
And then 10th in volume, Companhia Vale (RIO) down $0.87.
PepsiCo (PEP), a casualty today, down $7.37. Third-quarter earnings dropped 9.5 percent from last year. Excluding items, they came to $1.06 a share, $0.02 below the Street estimate. And because of the economic slowdown, Pepsi is cutting 3,300 jobs, or 1.8 percent of its workforce. In sympathy, incidentally, Coca-Cola (KO) fell $3.53 to close at $43.73 a share.
Major loser in Energy Solutions (ES), tumbling $4.50. The company said the global financial crisis will delay its speed-up of decommissioning certain nuclear power plant assets. And that's a key growth factor for Energy Solutions.
Dominos Pizza (DPZ) down $2.55. Third-quarter earnings fell to $0.13 from $0.17 a year ago. Sales were actually down 3.4 percent.
XL Capital (XL), now there's a good gainer, 55 percent, up $4.09. The insurance company said third-quarter results should show earnings of $0.40 a share. That's way down from earnings of $3.13 a year ago, but $0.02 better than the Street was expecting. And the company said it has no need to raise capital right now.
Keycorp (KEY) up $4.21 on the strong banking sector. Citigroup upgraded that one from hold to a buy.
And yet another bank, SunTrust (STI), rising $7.84. The Morgan Keegan brokerage upgraded it from market perform to outperform.
And the back on the downside, Lear Corp. (LEA), which makes auto seating, off $1.81. Credit Suisse cut its price target from $19 to only $6 a share. And Moody's cut its outlook for Lear to a negative rating.
NASDAQ's most active, Apple (AAPL) down $6.18.
Then came Microsoft (MSFT), off $1.40.
Google (GOOG) tumbling $18.31. Barclays Capital cut Google's price target from $600 a share, down to $542.
Research In Motion (RIMM) fell $3.75.
Intel (INTC), a $1.06 loss. After the close, Intel reported third-quarter earnings $0.35, up from $0.31 a year ago, and a penny above the Street estimate. In after-hours trading, the stock was up $0.60 from this level. And incidentally, Scott Gurvey, our New York bureau chief, will be interviewing Intel's CEO just shortly on the program.
Then we see Cisco (CSCO) down $0.73.
Qualcomm (QCOM), a $1.98 loss.
Oracle (ORCL) fell $1.17.
Amazon.com (AMZN) off $6.16. RBC Capital cut its price target from $100 a share down to $80 a share.
And then Baidu.com (BIDU) losing $15.80.
And those are the "Stocks in the News" tonight.
