Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Monday, October 27, 2008
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PAUL KANGAS: Wall Street took its opening cue from overseas markets, most of which tumbled again. The Dow plunged 170 points at the outset of trading, but that rise in new home sales cushioned the sell off and got buyers out of hiding as the Dow rebounded with a 173 point gain at 1:00 p.m. while the NASDAQ was up about 16 points. Then traders sold into that strength, turning stocks choppy at first and then broadly lower by the final bell. The Dow Industrial Average closed off 203.18 at 8175.77. The NASDAQ Composite lost 46.13 ending at 1505.90 while the Standard & Poor's 500 Index fell 27.85 points to 848.92. In the bond market, the 10-year note fell 4/32 to 102 16/32, putting the yield at 3.69 percent.
Big board volume leader on 25 million shares, National City (NCC), 25 million share traded down a nickel. As we reported PNC Financial will buy it for stock today worth about $2.30 a share.
General Electric (GE) down a dime.
$0.41 loss in Citigroup (C).
JPMorgan chase (JPM) fell $1.43.
And then Wachovia (WB) with a $0.06 loss on the day.
ExxonMobil (XOM) down $2.95.
Pfizer (PFE) dropped $0.18.
Bank of America (BAC) losing $0.54.
Wells Fargo & Co (WFC) an $0.08 drop.
But look at this, Verizon Communications (VZ) up $2.53. Third quarter earnings out, $0.66, up from $0.63 a year ago, a penny above the Street consensus. The company's upbeat was rather - or the outlook was upbeat and Standard & Poor's repeated a "buy" on Verizon stock.
Centurytel (CTL) losing $3.88. The company is going to acquire Embarq, its larger rival and it'll be for a stock deal, $1.37 shares of Citadel (sic) for each Embarq share. It's worth about 35 and today Embarq closed up $0.64 at $30.38 after reporting much lower than expected earnings.
Morgan Stanley (MS) off $2.79. The company said it had $46 billion in money market fund redemptions last month.
Humana (HUM) down $5.47. Third quarter earnings dropped to $1.09 from $1.78 last year despite a 13 percent rise in revenues and the company cut its fourth quarter earnings guidance from $1.17 down to $1.07 a share.
Lorillard (LO) down or up $2.30 - I'm so used to saying down - here's one up. Third quarter earnings $1.35, a $0.03 better than expected. Sales were up 7.8 percent and here's the company that spun off Lorillard a while back, Loews (L) off $5.66. Third quarter loss of $0.33, up - that versus $0.58 last year. Revenues fell 16 percent. Standard & Poor's downgraded Loews from "buy" to "hold."
And here's another Loews-related company, CNA Financial (CNA). Loews is the largest shareholder. CNA reported sharply lower third quarter earnings, $0.31 versus $0.78 a year ago and the company is suspending any payment of a stock dividend. Those earnings $0.17 below the Street estimate.
Finally, DineEquity (DIN) up $2.91. The company did have a third quarter loss of $0.98, bigger than last year's $0.69 loss, but it sold 29 Applebees restaurants for more than expected and agreed to sell 66 more. It'll use the proceeds to pay down debt and investors like that idea.
Apple (AAPL) topped the NASDAQ's active, down $4.29.
Microsoft (MSFT) $0.78 loss.
Google (GOOG) $9.80 drop there.
Research in Motion (RIMM) fell $2.30.
Intel (INTC) $0.03 drop, fifth in volume on NASDAQ.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) down $0.22.
Oracle (ORCL) $0.43 loss.
Qualcomm (QCOM) down $1.01.
Amgen (AMGN) fell $2.43.
And finally a gainer, Amazon.com (AMZN) moving up $0.62.
Elsewhere Savient Pharmaceuticals (SVNT) tumbling $8.51, almost 74 percent of its value gone. The company said its gout drug appears to be effective but can cause some serious side effects.
Those are the stocks in the news tonight.
