Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
|
|
|
|
DARREN GERSH: Stocks opened down a bit on that news but spent the day trading in a fairly narrow range with the blue chips ending the day to the downside. Tech stocks held their ground. The Dow closed off 29 points at 8474. The NASDAQ rose 2 points to end the day at 1734 and the S&P 500 falling 1 point to 908. Over in the bond market, the 10-year note falling 4/32 to 98 31/32, putting the yield at 3.25 percent.
Once again bank stocks dominated trading as investors were trying to figure out what it might mean if some banks paid back their government bailout money a little early. Bank of America (BAC) topping the actives, the stock up $0.48 today. Late today the company priced a secondary offering of 825 million shares at $10 a share.
Another bank, Citigroup (C) rising $0.13.
Ford Motor (F) up $0.13, not much of a reaction to that fuel efficiency news.
General Electric (GE) adding $0.23. Chairman Jeff Immelt says it may take as much as two years to clean up the company's finance arm.
Another bank, State Street Corp (STT) shares up $1.42. The bank is raising $ 1/2 billion to pay back their bailout money.
And there you see Wells Fargo (WFC) falling $1.53.
JPMorgan Chase (JPM) down $1.45, the banker declaring a quarterly dividend of $0.05 a share.
American Intl Group (AIG) down $0.02. The SEC's excuse me, the SEC says it's mailing checks totaling more than $800 million to thousands of investors harmed after the company allegedly falsified financial statements.
Pfizer (PFE) down $0.09.
And Tenet Healthcare (THC) rounding out the actives, gaining $0.52 or 22 percent. Goldman Sachs upgrades Tenet to "buy" and says the share value of the hospital operator could double.
Let's take a look at Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) rising $0.85, but after the bell, HP posted second quarter earnings, hitting their earnings target of $0.86 a share, in line with estimates, but HP predicted third quarter sales could fall as much as 2 percent from last quarter. That stock is down almost 5 percent in after hours trading.
Let's take a closer look at Home Depot (HD) falling $1.39. The company had some interesting things to say on their earnings call this morning. First quarter earnings of $0.35, sales are down about 10 percent. Foreclosures are still rising in California and Home Depot thinks that has to change to get a sustainable improvement for the company.
And now some fashion news, Saks (SKS) sales fell 27 percent in the first quarter and Citi's retail analyst tells me to expect significant pressure on profit margins, but the company's $0.04 a share loss was much better than Wall Street expected. Saks shares ended up $0.73.
And now for the other side of fashion, TJX (TJX), which includes TJ Max and Marshall's in with a different retail picture. Profits up 8 percent in the first quarter and same store sales up 2 percent over last year and that stock gaining $1.09.
Moving on to NASDAQ, Apple (AAPL) added $0.80.
Google (GOOG) up $2.04.
Look at this, Research in Motion (RIMM) down $0.16.
Microsoft (MSFT) also down $0.16.
And Cisco Systems (CSCO) up $0.16.
Intel (INTC) breaking the trend. It climbed $0.13.
First Solar (FSLR) rose $4.80.
Amazon.com (AMZN) up $1.92.
Qualcomm (QCOM) edged $0.35 higher.
And Dryships (DRYS) up $0.12.
And now I want to take a look at the coffee wars. Starbucks (SBUX) and McDonalds (MCD) are competing head to sleepy head in an advertising war for the caffeine crowd. Starbucks stock up $0.03 today. McDonald's ad offensive includes a website unsnobbycoffee.com. So who's winning? Analysts say both are. Soda sales are slowing, so McDonald's is adapting. There you see that stock down $0.32 today. Really the direct competition between the two companies is limited to families where the parents only have time to make one stop but need their coffee. That's people like me.
And those are the stocks in the news tonight.
