Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Thursday, October 23, 2008
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PAUL KANGAS: It was a mixed open and a mixed close for Wall Street today. With the Dow rising 30 points and the NASDAQ falling seven points in the opening minutes, but then several large computer buy programs sent the blue chips jumping to a 270 point gain at 11:00 a.m. Bearish traders sold into that strength over the next several hours, so by 3:00 p.m. this afternoon, the Dow was down 228 points. Then came a final hour whipsaw rally which lifted the blue chips to a positive close. The DOW Industrial Average ended with a gain of 172.04 points at 8691.25. The NASDAQ still lost but it was just a modest 11.84 ending at 1603.91. Standard & Poor's 500 Index gained 11.33 to close at 908.11. Over in the bond market, the 10-year note fell 20/32 to 102 21/32, putting the yield at 3.67 percent.
New York exchange volume leader with 22.4 million shares was Citigroup (C) down $0.21.
Followed by General Electric (GE) with a $0.16 drop.
Wachovia (WB) gained a nickel.
ExxonMobil (XOM) rebounding $5.82 after dropping sharply yesterday as oil fell, but today it was up $1.09 in New York trading.
Pfizer (PFE) $0.36 gain there.
Bank of America (BAC) was up $0.34.
JPMorgan Chase (JPM) $0.68 advance.
American International Group (AIG) lost a penny.
AT&T (T) up $1.48. It dropped about $1.95 yesterday despite higher earnings.
Ford Motor Co (F), tenth in volume was down $0.10.
Coca-Cola Co (KO) losing $2.32. Coca-Cola Enterprises, which is its largest bottler, which it owns 35 percent, cut its 2008 earnings forecast, partly due to a $35 million cut in funding from Coca-Cola and tension are building between the two companies. Enterprise's stock was down $2.04, closing at an even $9 a share.
Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) off $2.08 after Goldman Sachs removed it from its "buy" list.
Goldman Sachs Group (GS) off $6.13, traded as low as $101.71 today. The company's cutting 3200 jobs globally. That's 10 percent of the workforce for Goldman Sachs.
Dow Chemical Co. (DOW) moved up $2.32 on higher third quarter earnings, $0.46 versus $0.42 a year ago. Sales in the period up 13 percent.
Colonial Bancgroup (CNB) big loser of the day, down nearly 56 percent with that loss of almost $4. The company had a third quarter loss of $0.35 a share. It's suspending its $0.38 per share annual dividend. JPMorgan downgraded it from "over weight" to just a "neutral" rating.
Alcon (ACL) tumbling $38.66, traded as low as $87.60. The Swiss eye care company had higher third quarter earnings of $2.07, up from $1.38 a year ago, but it cut 2008 overall sales and earnings guidance and that really hurt the stock.
Covance (CVD) down $14.02. The drug developer had third quarter earnings rising to $0.80 from $0.69 a year ago, but the fact is that 40 percent of the company's sales come from overseas and the stronger dollar recently is proving to be quite a headwind for the company's earnings.
Apple (AAPL) topped NASDAQ's most active, up $1.36.
Microsoft (MSFT) closing up $0.79. As you heard after the close, first quarter earnings $0.48, a penny better than the Street, but the outlook isn't too bright and the stock didn't do much in after hours trading.
Google (GOOG) down $3.35.
Research in Motion (RIMM) down $2.45.
Amazon.com edged up $0.33. After the close yesterday, the company had higher earnings, but its guidance was rather guarded (ph) and traded as low as $43 today, then rebounded.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) $0.17 loss.
Baidu.com (BIDU) tumbling $36.55. After the close yesterday, third quarter earnings came in at $1.47, $0.20 above the Street estimate, but it turns out that Google appears to be gaining market share in China from Baidu.
Amgen (AMGN) up $5.85. After the close yesterday, its third quarter earnings of $1.23 were $0.15 better than the Street was expecting. Nice move today on the upside.
Intel (INTC) a $0.07 loss.
Then came Qualcomm (QCOM) losing $0.37.
Phoenix Technologies (PTEC) dropping about 35 percent with that loss of $2.45. The company reported a fourth quarter loss of $0.16 a share, eight times worse than the $0.02 loss from a year ago.
Those are the stocks in the news tonight.
