Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
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PAUL KANGAS: Wall Street opened broadly lower on profit taking after yesterday's hefty gains. An hour into trading, the Dow was down 103 points and the NASDAQ off 26 points. Impressed that the early sell-off wasn't steeper, cautious buyers stepped in helping the blue chips move briefly into positive territory. But when the upturn failed to gather steam, a late sell-off ensued sending the markets to its lowest level of the day. The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended down 115.89 points at 7659.97. The NASDAQ Composite lost 39 1/4 points exactly to 1516.52. Standard & Poor's 500 down 16.91 ending at 806.01. In the bond market, the 10-year note fell 15/32 to par and 11/32, putting the yield at 2.71 percent.
Once again the most active big board issue today on 107 million shares, Citigroup (C) giving back $0.11 and some of its recent gains.
Followed by Bank of America (BAC) same profit taking there, down $0.65.
American International Group (AIG) down $0.11.
General Electric (GE) a $0.06 loss. Deutsche Bank feels that GE will not need to seek any further external equity funding.
Wells Fargo & Co (WFC) down $1.83 in that weak banking group today.
JPMorgan Chase (JPM) same reason, down $2.64.
Morgan Stanley (MS) bucked the trend, up $0.62.
Alcoa (AA) in there with an $0.08 loss.
And Las Vegas Sands (LVS) up $0.43 after the company hired Goldman Sachs to negotiate a loan amendment that would allow the casino company to buy back up to $800 million of its debt.
Co Vale do Rio (RIO), tenth in volume, was down $0.63.
US Steel (X) up another $1.02 after gaining $2.36 yesterday on a Citigroup "buy" rating and a positive outlook for the steel industry, nice follow through today on the stock.
Allergan (AGN) up $5.41 on speculation Glaxo-Smith-Kline is eyeing it as a takeover target and Glaxo stock was down $0.47 at $29.31.
Hospira (HSP), this is a generic drug firm, up $1.90. The company is cutting its global work force by 10 percent over the next two years to save costs. Standard & Poor's repeated a "buy" recommendation today.
McCormick & Co (MKC) spiced things up here today with a loss of $3.18, even though it had spicy earnings, $0.44 up from $0.30 last year, but the company sees 2009 sales at the low end of its projected growth rate of 2 to 4 percent. Down went the stock.
Newell Rubbermaid (NWL) down $0.63, traded as low as $6.36. The company of course makes Paper Mate pens and Rubbermaid containers and it's cutting its quarterly dividend 52 percent down to only $0.05 a share.
Under Armour (UA), this is the athletic apparel company, losing $2.40. Morgan Stanley downgraded it from "equal weight" to "under weight" on a valuation basis.
Phillips-Van Heusen (PVH) buttoned up a gain of $2.51. Fourth quarter earnings, $0.30, down from $0.55 last year, but that was $0.02 above the Street consensus and it sees first quarter earnings rising to $0.40 to $0.50. Citigroup upgraded it "hold" to "buy."
And then we see Phoenix Cos (PFX) rising $1. The life insurance firm was noted by KBW to be a possible sale target in the wake of the CEO's resignation next month.
Apple (AAPL) topped the active list on NASDAQ, down $1.16.
Google (GOOG) off $1.44.
Intel (INTC) $0.52 loss there.
Microsoft (MSFT) $0.40 drop.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) $0.30 loss on that stock.
Baidu (BIDU) up $5.70 after Deutsche Bank said that the worst is over for the Chinese Internet firm, nice move in the stock.
Qualcomm (QCOM) $0.79 loss.
Research in Motion (RIMM) down $0.67.
Oracle (ORCL) $0.34 loss.
And CME Group (CME) down $26.60 after rising about $35 yesterday.
T-3 Energy Services (TTES) tumbling $3.89 on the surprise resignation of the company's chief executive officer.
And Universal Stainless Alloy Products (USAP) down $1.74. The company has revised its first quarter forecast from a profit to a loss.
And those are the stocks in the news tonight.
