Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
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PAUL KANGAS: Hewlett-Packard surprised Wall Street this morning, reporting fourth quarter results six days early and beating analyst estimates. That upbeat news and a sharp drop in October wholesale prices helped set the tone of trading, with the Dow stair-stepping its way to a 165-point gain by noon when the NASDAQ was up 11 points. A bearish report on home builder confidence turned stocks sharply lower as the Dow posted a 130-point loss at 3:00 p.m. this afternoon. But then a late computer buy program lifted the market to a strong close. So the Dow Industrial Average gained 151.17 ending at 8424.75. The NASDAQ rose just a little over a point and then the Standard & Poor's 500 closed up 8.37 at 859.12. Over in the bond market, the 10-year note rose 30/32 to 101 26/32, putting the yield at 3.53 percent.
New York exchange volume leader on 30 1/4 million shares, Citigroup (C) down $0.53.
Followed by General Electric (GE) with a $0.05 loss, although GE says it plans to save up to $2 billion next year through the restructuring of its GE capital unit.
Bank of America (BAC) was up $0.16. Its CEO Kenneth Lewis says he sees no recovery from recession until the housing market stabilizes and didn't think that'll happen until the summer of 2009.
JPMorgan Chase (JPM) $0.63 loss there.
ExxonMobil (XOM) had a good day, up nearly $3 a share.
Wells Fargo (WFC) $0.63 loss.
Wachovia (WB) dropped a penny.
And then Pfizer (PFE) $0.37 gain.
And finally, Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), the star of the Dow, up $4.25. The company sees a fourth quarter profit of $1.03 a share, $0.03 above the Wall Street consensus. Standard & Poor's repeated a "strong buy" on the stock today.
Then came AT&T (T), tenth in volume, with a $0.20 loss.
Metlife (MET) losing $1.51. The life insurance sector very weak today as many companies there hope to get a slice of the government bailout fund by purchasing smaller banks. A number of them are doing just that.
Corning (GLW) down $0.62, traded as low as $7.37, a five-year low. Corning lowered its fourth quarter earnings guidance to the low end of its previous $0.20 to $0.28 per share forecast. Merrill Lynch downgraded the stock from "buy" to "neutral" today.
Home Depot (HD) a $0.71 gain despite lower third quarter earnings of $0.45, down from last year's $0.60, but $0.07 above the Wall Street estimate.
Medtronic (MDT) lost $4.82. It had higher second quarter earnings of $0.67, up from $0.58 last year, but that was $0.04 below the Street estimate and the company cut its 2009 earnings guidance from a high of $3.02 a share down to $2.98 at best.
Chiquita Brands (CQB) had a great day, up $1.83 after BB&T Capital brokerage upgraded it from "hold" to "buy."
But Saks (SKS) losing $0.56 and traded as low as $2.72 after reporting a third quarter loss of $0.31 versus an earnings of $0.14 last year. Same store sales down 11 1/2 percent.
Alpha Natural Resources (ANR) tumbling $5.10. The company and Cliffs Natural Resources formally known as Cleveland Cliffs have terminated their proposed merger. Cliffs stock was down $1.01.
And Flowers Foods (FLO) a $2.12 gain. That stock to be added to the Standard & Poor's 500 midcap 400 I should say.
And Bio-Rad Labs (BIO) also going to be added to the Standard & Poor's madcap 400 this coming Friday after the market closes.
Apple (AAPL) topped the NASDAQ actives, up $1.77.
Followed by Google (GOOG) down $2.70.
Then Microsoft (MSFT) $0.43 gain.
Research in Motion (RIMM) moved up $5.01.
Intel (INTC) an $0.11 advance.
Moving along in the actives, Baidu.com (BIDU) down $5.33 after a big drop yesterday.
$0.24 drop or gain in Cisco Systems (CSCO).
And then Oracle (ORCL) up $0.61.
Qualcomm (QCOM) $0.16 advance.
And then Amgen (AMGN) with a $0.25 closing gain.
Yahoo! (YHOO) was up $0.92. Co-founder Jerry Yang is stepping down as the CEO, but he will stay on the board of directors. The company meanwhile has begun a search for a new CEO.
Those are the stocks in the news tonight.
