Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Friday, March 27, 2009
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PAUL KANGAS: After three weeks of solid gains, Wall Street felt the sting of some profit taking today. In a steady sell-off, the Dow dropped 100 points by noontime, with the NASDAQ off 21 points. Sellers continued to dominate this afternoon amid the crosscurrents of end-of-quarter investment strategies. The result was a broadly lower close. The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended down 148.38 points at 7,776.18 and this week, it fell twice and rose three times, had a net advance of 497.80 points. That's almost 7 percent to the upside. The NASDAQ today fell 41.80 at 1,545.20. It also fell twice and rose three times this week and gained 87.93 points or about 6 percent overall. Standard & Poor's 500 lost 16.92 closing at 815.94 today. For the week, it rose 47.40 points overall. In the bond market, the 10-year note fell 5/32 to 99 28/32, putting the yield at 2.76 percent.
Once again topping the big board's active list today on 92 million shares, Citigroup (C) down $0.19, a little profit taking in the banking and financial sector in general.
Bank of America (BAC) losing $0.24.
American International Group (AIG) an $0.08 loss there.
Developers Diversified Realty (DDR) down $0.32.
General Electric (GE) lost $0.12.
JPMorgan Chase (JPM) off $1.70.
Wells Fargo (WFC) losing $0.36.
Pfizer (PFE) $0.34 drop there.
Las Vegas Sands (LVS) bucked the trend, up $0.02.
And Co Vale do Rio (RIO) down $0.78.
IBM (IBM) lost $4.63, a little profit taking there after the recent run up and also the company's expected to tell 5,000 North American employees their jobs are being transferred to India. Also the company's doing due diligence on a possible buyout bid for Sun Microsystems.
Accenture (ACN) down $4.30, slightly lower second quarter earnings, $0.63, a penny below last year. Revenues dropped 6 percent and the company cut its 2009 earnings guidance from a high of $2.85 down to $2.67 a share at best. Stieffel Nicholas brokerage downgraded it from "buy" to a "hold."
Plantronics (PLT) up $1.22. The company will outsource production of its Bluetooth headsets to China to improve profitability. Morgan Keegan and Avendale (ph) securities both upgraded the stock to "out perform."
Arbitron (ARB) up $1.45. JPMorgan upgraded it from "neutral" to "over weight."
And the IT company Synnex (SNX) up $3.96. First quarter earnings, $0.59, up from $0.51. Last year Needham brokerage upgraded it from "hold" to a "buy."
Christopher & Banks (CBK) down $1.50, big percentage drop. The company sees a drop in fourth quarter same store sales of 20 percent and a loss of $0.81 to $0.84 a share. UBS financial repeated a "sell."
Tesoro (TSO), the refining company, off $1.69. The Caris brokerage downgraded it from "average" to "below average."
And Alon USA Energy (ALJ) down $1.47. The Caris downgraded that one from "buy" to "above average" after the stock's recent 50 percent rise.
And finally KHD Humboldt Wedag (KHD), this is a company provides equipment for cement and coal processing, posted a 2009 fiscal $0.23 per share loss and it's cutting 50 percent of its staff.
NASDAQ's most active, Apple (AAPL) down $3.02.
Google (GOOG) a $5.59 drop.
Research in Motion (RIMM) off $0.03. Fourth quarter results due out next Thursday, Street estimate, $0.84 a share.
Microsoft (MSFT) down $0.70.
First Solar (FSLR) off $3.03 after a big gain yesterday.
Intel (INTC) a $0.40 drop there. The company registered a billion dollars of common stock for use in acquiring other companies.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) $0.36 drop.
$0.67 loss in Oracle (ORCL).
Qualcomm (QCOM) $0.60 loss.
And then Amazon (AMZN) down $3.17, tenth in volume.
Those are the stocks in the news tonight.
