Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
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PAUL KANGAS: Those March auto sales numbers and concerns about jobs had the Dow sliding 110 points and the NASDAQ down 20 just after the opening bell. But better than expected news on pending home sales, which we'll detail next spurred a quick recovery. At midday the blue chips were up 102 points and the NASDAQ Composite 17 points higher. Fresh second quarter demand had stocks closing at highs for the day this afternoon. The Dow Industrial Average ended with a gain of 152.68 at 7761 even. The NASDAQ Composite was up 23.01, ending at 1551.60, while the Standard & Poor's 500 rose 13.21 points to close at 811.08. Over in the bond market, the 10-year note rose 18/32 to par and 27/32, putting the yield at 2.65 percent.
Most active New York exchange issue on 68.4 million shares, Citigroup (C) moving up $0.15 in a fairly firm banking group.
Bank of America (BAC) up $0.23.
And then Denbury Resource (DNR), this company's involved in oil and gas properties and the stock was added to the Standard & Poor's madcap 400 index after the close, so you had index fund buying there.
General Electric (GE) edged $0.06 higher.
JPMorgan Chase (JPM) up $1.56. The company sold an independent research firm called Primary Insight it inherited in the takeover of Bear Stearns. No price was mentioned.
Wells Fargo (WFC) edged up $0.24.
And American Intl Group (AIG) $0.07 gain there.
Pfizer (PFE) moved up $0.37.
ExxonMobil (XOM) gaining $1.13.
And Ford Motor Co (F) an $0.11 gain there.
Mastercard (MA) down $7.40, traded as low as $157.19. The European Union's executive arm is dropping its case against Mastercard transaction fees in return for the company's pledge to cut them in half temporarily pending an appeal.
Dow Chemical (DOW) up $0.38. The company today completed its acquisition of Rohm & Haas.
And then VMware (VMW) up $2.50. Goldman Sachs added to the stock to its conviction "buy" list.
Ashland (ASH) rising $1.58. JPMorgan upgraded it from "neutral" to "over weight."
And then Metavante Technologies (MV), this company does financial account processing services and Fidelity National information services is acquiring it for 1.35 of its shares. That's worth about $22.79 after Fidelity National stock fell $1.32 on the news.
Stryker (SYK), which makes orthopedic products, down $0.96. An FDA advisory panel has voted against approving the company's OP-1 bone growth putty.
Then we see Sealy (ZZ), the mattress company, up $1.21. First quarter earnings came in at only $0.05, down from $0.17 a year ago, but the Street was looking for a loss of $0.03 and Raymond James financial brokerage upgraded it from "out perform" to a "strong buy."
Danaher (DHR) down $1.71. JPMorgan downgraded it from "over weight" to "neutral."
Volume leader on NASDAQ, Apple (AAPL) up $3.57.
Microsoft (MSFT) $0.94 gain.
Apollo Group (APOL) down $11.87. The company is forecasting lower profit margins in the second half, noted it's having a rise in student loans defaults. The Baird brokerage downgraded it from "buy" to "neutral" and a lot of the education stocks today weak on that news.
Celgene (CELG) off $5.93. Preliminary first quarter results, $0.43 in earnings, down a nickel from the Street estimate. The company sees full year at the low end of its $2.05 to $2.15 target.
Research in Motion (RIMM) earnings due out tomorrow, up $2.51 today.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) a $0.69 gain.
Google (GOOG) up $6.03.
Intel (INTC) no change there.
Qualcomm (QCOM) $0.77 gain.
And finally Oracle (ORCL) settled near the high of the day, rising $0.51 and it's up 34 percent from the March low.
