Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Monday, March 16, 2009
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PAUL KANGAS: The Fed chief's encouraging outlook encouraged Wall Street's blue chip buyers this morning, as did word from Britain's Barclay's Bank that it's off to a strong start this year. By 1:00 p.m., the Dow stair- stepped its way to a 154 point gain, while the NASDAQ was up only nine points. The blue chips faded in the final hour after American Express reported a jump in credit card defaults. The tech-laden NASDAQ market also took a hit, dragging the broader market to a negative close. The Dow Industrial Average ended with a loss of 7.01 at 7216.97. The NASDAQ down 27.48 to 1404.02. Standard & Poor's 500 dropped 2.66 ending at 753.89. Over in the bond market, the 10-year note fell 17/32 to 98 7/32, putting the yield at 2.96 percent.
Most active big board issue Citigroup (C) today on 287 million shares, the stock up $0.55 or 31 percent. The board announced it's nominated four new independent director candidates to be voted on at the annual shareholders' meeting coming up on April 21st. Bank of America (BAC) moved up $0.42.
Tyco International (TYC) in there with a $0.24 gain.
American Intl Group (AIG), you heard the news there, stock up $0.33.
General Electric (GE) a $0.04 gain, fifth in volume.
Wells Fargo (WFC) down $0.24.
JPMorgan (JPM) $0.66 drop.
Pfizer (PFE) fell $0.39.
Chemtura (CEM) $0.07 loss.
And then Northeast Utilities (NU) with a $0.38 gain.
Alcoa (AA) closed up $0.39. After the close, the company cut its quarterly dividend from $0.17 to only $0.03 a share. It's going to offer $1.1 billion in common stock and convertible notes. In after hours trading, the stock plunged to $5.45.
American Express (AXP) $0.43 drop there. The company said its credit card default rates rose 8.7 percent in February.
Barclays Plc (BCS) the big bank in Britain, up $0.89, traded as high as $5.75. The company's mulling over the disposal of its Ishare operations and says its business had a strong start so far in 2009.
Union Pacific (UNP) up $1.75. Bank of America, Merrill Lynch upgraded it from "neutral" to "buy" in the belief that trade volumes have bottomed out and the whole sector in rails did very well on that news.
Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNI), CSX (CSX) and Norfolk Southern (NSC) all nice gains posted today.
And moving along, I think that the rail news helped Fedex (FDX) which rose $2.16. Third quarter results incidentally due out Thursday. Street estimate $0.46 to $0.48 a share.
Fluor (FLR) down $2.95 on news that Kuwait canceled a $15 billion oil refinery project that Fluor would have helped to build.
Weyerhaeuser Co (WY), the big timber company, up $1.11. Deutsche Bank upgraded it from "hold" to a "buy."
And then Greenbrier Co (GBX), $0.76 gain, traded as high as $4.06. Keybanc upgraded it from "hold" to "buy" in the belief the company can avoid bankruptcy and could be a takeover target.
Apple (AAPL) topped the NASDAQ actives, down $0.51.
Google (GOOG) fell $4.73.
Microsoft (MSFT) $0.40 drop there.
$0.45 loss in Intel (INTC). You can see where the NASDAQ loss came from.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) losing $0.06.
Amazon.com (AMZN) fell $1.65.
Research in Motion (RIMM) losing $1.01.
Oracle (ORCL) $0.66 loss there.
Qualcomm (QCOM) down $0.90.
And completing this blizzard of minus signs, Amgen (AMGN) down $0.47.
And those are the stocks in the news tonight.
