Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Friday, May 22, 2009
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DARREN GERSH: Some pretty light trading on Wall Street today ahead of the holiday weekend. As a hedge fund manager once told me, people close out their trading positions before a holiday so they don't have to make decisions in their swim suits. While moving higher early on, stocks headed south after the FDIC said it would charge banks a special fee to help restore its insurance fund. So the Dow closed down almost 15 points at 8277. For the week, it rose once and fell four times but still managed a tiny net weekly gain of about nine points. The NASDAQ fell three points today to 1692. It rose twice and fell three times this week, gaining almost 12 points overall. Standard & Poor's 500 lost a point to 887. It logged a four point gain on the week. Now some perspective on the S&P. If you looked at all the companies in the index as if they were a single stock, Citigroup analysts figure the S&P would earn $56 a share next year. In 2006, the figure was $88. So our recovery has a ways to go. In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year rising to 3.45 percent.
Bank of America (BAC) again the big volume leader falling $0.34. Much of the $5.6 billion the FDIC is raising for deposit insurance will come from big banks like B of A. The agency sees the tab for bank failures costing $70 billion in 2013.
General Motors (GM) down $0.49. As we mentioned, a bankruptcy deadline coming soon. Under the company's restructuring plans, current shareholders would end up owning about 1 percent of GM.
Citigroup (C) losing a nickel.
Regions Financial (RF) a $0.06 loss.
American Intl Group (AIG) sheds $0.10.
General Electric (GE) down $0.14.
Wells Fargo (WFC) loses $0.73.
Ford Motor (F) $0.07 drop. The stock has been on a solid run for a few months.
Pfizer (PFE) up $0.13.
JPMorgan Chase (JPM) down $0.49.
Archers Daniels Midland (ADM) rising $1.32 or 5 percent. Citigroup upgrades from "sell" to "hold" on an expected increase in demand for its soy products.
Wellpoint (WLP) loses $0.64. Stiefel Nicolaus downgrading the company in part on concerns about what health care reform will mean for the nation's largest HMO. Now those reform efforts will heat up here in Washington next month.
Look at LDK Solar (LDK). It's the big loser of the day, down $1.53, almost 17 percent. The solar company posted weak first quarter earnings after the bell yesterday. Now all week, we've been hearing from solar firms about the glut of panels out there as the credit crisis forces cutbacks in new solar energy projects.
It is Memorial Day weekend which means cookout time and there's a dog off brewing. Kraft (KFT) up $0.53. The maker of Oscar Myer hot dogs running ads this week claiming their hot dogs taste better than Ballpark franks. T
The Ballpark maker Sara Lee (SLE) down $0.05, has launched a legal dog fight, suing Kraft, calling the ads misleading. Now analysts got a laugh out of this, but Sara Lee and Kraft are facing some pressure from trading down phenomenon where people buy more store brands, though consumers still prefer name brand hot dogs.
Flipping over to the NASDAQ, Apple (AAPL) fell $1.68.
Research in Motion (RIMM) dropped almost $1.
Microsoft (MSFT) down $0.07.
Google (GOOG) fell $3.
Intel (INTC) slid $0.13.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) fell $0.20.
Cougar Biotech (CGRB) up $5.84 or almost 16 percent. The cancer company being acquired by Johnson & Johnson for almost $1 billion. That is a smaller premium than we've seen in other deals.
Qualcomm (QCOM) down $0.38.
Oracle (ORCL) up $0.08.
And CME Group (CME) closes out the NASDAQ actives up $13.17.
Take a look at Sears Holdings (SHLD) up $5.21, another less bad story here. After the bell, Sears reported it made a profit in the first quarter. That is less bad than the Street had expected. Analysts were projecting a big loss. Still, overall revenues off 9 percent. The housing market is hurting things like appliance sales.
And those are the stocks in the news tonight.
