Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
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JEFF YASTINE: Investors also had a cautious mindset, giving the auto and financial stocks another drubbing in today's trading session. The Dow was dragged lower right from the start. Citigroup shares led the way down with a record one-day drop of nearly 23 percent, while GM shares fell almost 10 percent as those bailout hearings dragged on. The selling intensified after the release of the Fed minutes noting further contraction in the economy. In all, the Dow skidded 5 percent or 427.47 points to 7997.28. That its lowest close in over five years. The NASDAQ fell 96.85 to 1386.42. And the S&P 500 tumbling 52.54 to end at 806.58. In the bond market, Treasuries soared on flight to quality buying, the 10-year note rising 1 18/32 to 103 14/32, pushing the yield way down to 3.34 percent.
Citigroup (C) starting our list here, down $1.96 or about 22 percent. That's the largest one-day drop in Citigroup shares ever. The spread of credit default swaps for Citi widened considerably today. Citi said it will buy in the last of its toxic debt assets, about $17 billion held in structured investment vehicles. Those are 13-year lows for Citi shares.
General Electric (GE) dropped $1.61.
Bank of America (BAC) part of this weak financial group today, down more than $2.
JPMorgan Chase (JPM) dropping $3.67.
Target (TGT) shares plunged more than $3. One investment group, Pershing Square Capital wants Target to convert its land assets into a real estate investment trust. That could raise cash and allow Target to pay down some of its debt, but analysts are lukewarm to that idea.
ExxonMobil (XOM) off nearly $3. Crude prices dropped $0.77 to below $54 a barrel today.
Wells Fargo (WFC) dropping $2.80.
Wachovia (WB) dropping $0.69.
Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) losing $2.77. The American Hospital Association says more people are putting off costly medical procedures because of the economy, so now even defensive hospital medical device stocks are starting to get caught up in this market plunge.
Pfizer (PFE) dropped $0.73.
And there is Alcoa (AA) dropping $1.32. JPMorgan sees Alcoa posting a loss.
Turning to some other Dow stocks getting hammered today, Caterpillar (CAT), Dupont Co (DD), General Motors (GM) losing $0.30. The bail out hearings dragging on and GM shares plumbing (ph) new multi-decade lows.
IBM (IBM), United Tech (UTX) all doing quite poorly.
Here's Lincoln National (LNC), its lowest level there in over 20 years on the shares. Analysts at UBS putting investors on guard to the insurer's exposure to troubled variable annuities.
And there are more (INAUDIBLE) on the road in today's sell off, Ace Ltd (ACE), Hartford Financial (HIG), Principal Financial (PFG) all hitting multi-year lows.
LDK Solar Co (LDK) slid $1.92, excuse me, as the global credit crisis takes the shine off of solar wafer makers. Strong third quarter earnings, those weighed in at $0.05 above analyst estimates.
And La-Z-Boy (LZB) tumbled $1.79, its second quarter loss swelled to $1.04 a share. That's five times as high, excuse me, of a year ago levels.
And then Genesco (GCO) socked for more than $6. The shoe maker warning that November same store sales will fall at about 9 percent due to weakness at its Johnson and Murphy unit.
And with a cough and the NASDAQ there, Apple (AAPL) dropping $3.62.
Google (GOOG) shedding more than $17.
Microsoft (MSFT) dropping $1.33. Steve Ballmer says they're not interested in buying Yahoo! as the company, although they might consider a buy of Yahoo! search.
Research in Motion (RIMM) down $1.92.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) losing $1.37.
And we have Oracle (ORCL) dropping $1.02.
Baidu.com (BIDU) losing $17.
Intel (INTC) losing $0.62.
First Solar (FSLR) losing more than $9.
And Qualcomm (QCOM) down $1.80.
Then we have Dryships (DRYS), excuse me, losing $2.67. No specific news, but Greek ship owners told Reuters their industry is in panic mode right now. Ships are being leased for $150,000 a day early this year can now be rented for $7,000 a day.
And finally, Century Aluminum (CENX) shares tumbled $2.62. JPMorgan cut its rating on the stock after lowering its forecast for aluminum prices by more than 10 percent.
