Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
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PAUL KANGAS: From the opening bell, the word was "sell" on Wall Street, and that's exactly what traders did on those growing fears of recession. By midday, the Dow was already down 378 points with the NASDAQ off 68 points. Fed Chairman Bernanke's midday comments put the market into a tailspin this afternoon, 5 percent slide in oil prices at just below $75 a barrel added to the selling pressure. So stocks went on to close at the day's lowest levels. The Dow Industrial Average tumbled 733.08 points to 8,577.91. The NASDAQ Composite nose-dived 150.68 points, ending at 1,628.33. While the Standard & Poor's 500 Index plunged 90.17 to end at 907.84. Over in the bond market, the 10-year note surged 1 2/32 to par and 13/32, putting the yield down to 3.95 percent.
Big Board volume leader, General Electric (GE), down $1.60 on 25.25 million shares.
Followed by Citigroup (C), down $2.39.
Bank of America (BAC), just like Citigroup, giving back recent gains, off $2.71.
Then Pfizer (PFE) with a $0.86 loss.
Exxon Mobil (XOM) tumbling $10.11 a share. November oil in New York traded down $4.09 to $74.54 a barrel.
Let's have a look at some other hard-hit Dow stocks today: Alcoa (AA) off $1.66. Fitch cut a number of the company's ratings, and the stock down $1.66.
American Express (AXP), Caterpillar (CAT), Chevron (CVX), and DuPont (DD) all multiple point losers.
Getting back to the active list, JPMorgan Chase (JPM) off $2.22. The company in with an 84 percent drop in third-quarter earnings, $0.11 versus $0.97. But the Street was looking for a loss of $0.21. At one point, Morgan's stock was as high as $41.79 today.
Then Wells Fargo (WFC) down only $0.17. Its third-quarter earnings came in at $0.49, well down from $0.64 a year ago. But that was $0.08 better than expected. Wells also said its Wachovia (WB) merger is on-track to close at the end of the year. And Standard & Poor's upgraded the stock of Wells Fargo from hold to a buy.
AT&T (T) in there with a $2.06 loss.
American International Group (AIG) down $0.37.
And Companhia Vale (RIO) down $3.48.
There was one gainer in the Dow 30, and it was Coca-Cola (KO), up $0.48 on the close. It traded as high as $47.33 after reporting third-quarter earnings of $0.81, up from $0.71 a year ago. Revenues rose 9.1 percent. And today's Standard & Poor's repeated a strong buy on Coke stock.
CSX (CSX), the big rail, down $5.29, $0.94 in third-quarter earnings, up from $0.67 last year. But due to the slowing economy, the company is now targeting the low end of its 2008 earnings guidance of $3.65 to $3.75 a share.
Genentech (DNA) moved up $2.38. After the close yesterday, third-quarter earnings came in at $0.81, up from $0.73 a year ago. Revenues jumped 17 percent. And today the Cowen brokerage upgraded the stock from neutral to outperform.
Visa (V) down $7.86. Standard & Poor's downgraded it from buy to hold in reaction to the drop in September retail sales and the slowing economy in general.
Jones Apparel Group (JNY) losing $4.01, almost 30 percent of its value. The company cut its 2008 earnings guidance from a high of $1.35 a share down to $0.98 a share at best.
And then the golf company, Callaway (ELY), down $2.39. The company sees third-quarter sales of $213 million well below last year's $236 million. And it is forecasting a third-quarter loss of $0.12 to $0.14 a share.
Then the brokerage Piper Jaffray (PJC) off $6.83. Third-quarter loss reported $1.68 a share versus earnings of $0.28 last year. Revenues tumbled 25 percent.
Apple (AAPL) topped the NASDAQ actives, down $6.13.
Followed by Microsoft (MSFT), with a $1.44 loss.
Google (GOOG) down $23.54.
Intel (INTC), a $0.94 drop there.
Research In Motion (RIMM) off $4.37.
Cisco (CSCO) dropped $1.97.
Qualcomm (QCOM) off $4.01.
And Oracle (ORCL) losing $1.74.
Amazon.com (AMZN) in this blizzard of minus signs, down $7.14.
And then Baidu.com (BIDU) lost just over $23.
And finally, eBay (EBAY) was down $2.41 a share on the day. Merrill Lynch downgraded it from neutral to underperform. Then after the bell, eBay reported third-quarter profits of $0.46 per share, a nickel better than estimates. But the company warned fourth-quarter and full-year earnings will miss Street estimates. The shares fell $1 in after-hours trading.
