Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Thursday, March 19, 2009
|
|
|
|
DARREN GERSH: The battle remained the same on Wall Street today as those who believe the worst is over continue to duke it out with those who don't. This morning, concern the economy might hurt financial stocks won out, bringing the market down. Stocks fought back after the Federal Reserve announced it would expand the TALF. That's the trillion dollar program to support consumer lending. But the day still ended in the red. The Dow closed off 85 at 7400. The NASDAQ fell 7 points to 1483. The S&P 500 dropped 10 points to 784. Look at the bond market, the bond market dodged a profit taking after yesterday's big surge in prices. The 10-year note fell 10/32 to 101 and 7/32, lifting the yield to 2.61 percent.
Citigroup (C) topped the active list, falling $0.48 on some profit taking and a lukewarm reception to Citi's proposal to do a reverse stock split which may help boost the stock's rating in the Dow Industrial Average.
American International Group (AIG) picked up $0.24.
Bank of America (BAC) fell $0.74.
Look at General Electric (GE), it lost $0.19. The head of the GE's financial unit says it has voluntarily taken one of those government stress tests that all the big banks are taking and even under the worst case scenario, its finance unit will break even, so that's news.
Alcoa (AA) rose $0.92. JPMorgan added the stock to its focus list with an "over weight" rating. That followed the aluminum giant's successful $1.3 billion offering of common and convertible notes.
Fannie Mae (FNM) rose $0.17.
JPMorgan Chase (JPM) dropped $2.16.
Wells Fargo (WFC) slid $1.80.
But Freddie Mac (FRE) edged up $0.19.
Pfizer (PFE) ended off $0.55.
3M (MMM), let's look at. It fell $1.73. Analysts at Sanford Bernstein alerting investors, 2009 is shaping up as the conglomerate's weakest growth in 40 years as 3M scrambles to cut costs and raise cash and we're hearing that a lot these days.
Shares in Wal-Mart (WMT) slipped $0.49. The retailing giant is showing its appreciation to workers by awarding them $2 billion for their hard work during these trying times.
Here's a quick look at the auto parts suppliers that we heard about. It's interesting, they're all benefiting from the Obama administration's $5 billion life line, but Sheldon Stone at Amherst Partners tells us, this money isn't enough to get the sector through the next three months.
And there you see Lear (LEA) shares almost doubling.
Johnson Controls (JCI), Tenneco (TEN), TRW Automotive (TRW) each recovering from historic lows.
Medicis Pharmaceutical (MRX) climbed $2.42 yesterday. Medicis and Teva Pharmaceutical resolved their patent dispute over Medicis' acne drug. Teva says it will halt sales of its generic treatment. Teva stock fell $1.16.
On the downside, shares in Prudential Financial (PRU) took a hit, falling $6.16 after Moody's cut the life insurer's debt rating due to the poor outlook. Analysts at Credit Suisse believe the slow going sale of Pru's brokerage joint venture to Wells Fargo is another negative.
Shares in Clarcor (CLC) sank $2.27. First quarter profits sank nearly 50 percent to $0.17 per share. That is $0.13 below analysts' estimates. Clarcor, which makes filtration products, doesn't see much improvement until the second half.
And let's take a look over at Oracle (ORCL) topped the NASDAQ actives, jumping $1.54. The software maker scored a home run with last night's strong third quarter earnings plus its plans to pay its first dividend of $0.05.
Apple (AAPL) edged up $0.10.
But Google (GOOG) slid $3.16.
Intel (INTC) dropped $0.09.
Microsoft (MSFT) edged up $0.18.
Look at Qualcomm (QCOM). It fell $0.31.
Research in Motion (RIMM) rose $1.36.
Cisco (CSCO) fell $0.27 today. The tech giant entered into a deal to buy privately held Pure Digital Technologies for $590 million in stock. Now Pure Digital makes those popular foot (ph) video cameras that everybody can use to put videos up on youtube, so I guess that's why it's important.
Amazon (AMZN) ended up $1.15.
First Solar (FSLR) rose $6.16.
And that's a look at our stocks in the news tonight.
