Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Monday, January 05, 2009
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PAUL KANGAS: Wall Street opened lower on profit taking after last week's solid gains. The Dow fell over 100 points early on with the NASDAQ down 25 points. Stocks trimmed their losses over the mid-session, but rally attempts were undermined by analyst downgrades on AT&T, Verizon and JPMorgan. Also a plunge in December auto sales and a further jump in oil prices kept the market under pressure through the afternoon. So the Dow Industrial Average closed off 81.80 points at 8952.89. The NASDAQ Composite down 4.18 at 1628.03 while the Standard & Poor's 500 Index fell 4.35 ending at 927.45. Over in the bond market, the 10-year note fell 1 5/32 to 111 even, lifting the yield to 2.49 percent.
Most active New York exchange issue on 25.8 million shares, Citigroup (C) losing $0.06. Deutsche Bank cut earnings estimates on Citigroup and on 15 other major U.S. commercial banks and one of the others was Bank of America (BAC) which lost $0.35.
Then General Electric (GE) down $0.44.
Iron Mountain (IRM), a digital company, up a penny. It's very active today because this stock is replacing U.S.T., the old U.S. Tobacco Corp. in the Standard & Poor's 500 Index. U.S.T. of course being taken over by Altria.
ExxonMobil (XOM) down a penny even though oil prices were up today.
And then Compania Vale (RIO) up $0.91.
Sprint Nextel (S) rose $0.17.
Ford Motor Co (F) despite the lower auto sales up $0.12.
JPMorgan Chase (JPM) down $2.10. Deutsche Bank cut its 2009 earnings estimates by $0.65 down to $2.05 a share, also cut its price target on JPM from $37 to $34 a share and the Fox Pitt (ph) brokerage sees a fourth quarter loss coming up for JPMorgan.
Pfizer (PFE), tenth in big board volume was down $0.11.
Verizon Communications (VZ) losing $2.16. Bernstein Research downgraded it from "market perform" to "out perform," also downgraded AT&T from "out perform" to "market perform" and AT&T dropped $0.99 today.
Navistar International (NAV) the star indeed today, up $5.67. The company's projected 2009 earnings are below the Street estimate, but the company says its military business is growing and also it's very positive on some new opportunities.
Walgreen Co (WAG) up $1.29. Its December sales were up a better than expected 10.8 percent from a year ago, nice move in the stock.
Barnes & Noble (BKS), the book seller, a $2.06 gain. Investor Ron Burkle has accumulated an 8.3 percent stake in the belief that the stock is under valued.
Best Buy Co (BBY) in the meantime, up $0.98 and Goldman Sachs upgraded it from "neutral" to "buy."
McAfee (MFE) losing $1.04. Credit Suisse downgraded it from "out perform" to "neutral" in the belief that earnings gains over the near term will be quite limited for McAfee.
Aercap Holdings Nv (AER), look at that move, up nearly 48 percent and it traded as high as $5.18. The aircraft leasing and maintenance company signed a $1.4 billion credit facility with a group led by Calyon.
And then we see Las Vegas Sands (LVS) up $1.39 on hopes the Chinese (INAUDIBLE) for Macao will be loosened. Of course, this company has a major casino there.
Apple (AAPL) topped the active list up $3.83. You heard the news on Steve Jobs.
Google (GOOG) up $6.73.
Microsoft (MSFT) a $0.19 advance.
First Solar (FSLR) up $6.30.
Research in Motion (RIMM) gained $1.38.
Intel (INTC) a $0.29 loss.
While Cisco Systems (CSCO) moved up $0.15.
Amgen (AMGN) a $0.66 gain.
Qualcomm (QCOM) lost $0.60.
And then Comcast (CMCSA), tenth in NASDAQ volume, down $0.90.
Elsewhere, Conmed (CNMD), this is a company that sells and markets hospital equipment and it's plunging nearly $7 a share after the company issued a warning that fourth quarter sales will be hurt by foreign exchange fluctuation, probably because of the stronger dollar.
And those are the stocks in the news tonight.
