Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
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PAUL KANGAS: Fedex took the air out of Wall Street in early trading today, as the shipping firm issued a lower than expected first quarter earnings forecast. By 11:00 a.m. the Dow was off 24 points and the NASDAQ down two points. A mere 0.1 percent rise in May consumer prices helped lead a rebound in stocks with the Dow up 50 points this afternoon, until a late sell program wiped out that gain. So the Dow Industrial Average closed down 7.49 at 8497.18. The NASDAQ Composite ended with a gain of 11.88 at 1808.06. Standard & Poor's 500 down 1.26 at 910.71. Over in the bond market, the 10-year note fell 10/32 to 95 12/32, putting the yield at 3.69 percent.
Most active New York exchange issue on 67.4 million shares, Citigroup (C) down $0.17. Today, Standard & Poor's downgraded counter party credit ratings on 22 banks, but Citigroup was not one of them.
Bank of America (BAC) down $0.43. Neither was Bank America, one of the downgraded banks today.
General Electric (GE) in there with a $0.53 loss.
Then Wells Fargo (WFC) off $1.31. Wells Fargo was one of the 22 banks that got a credit rating downgrade from Standard & Poor's today.
Lincoln National (LNC) in the midst of a big stock offering, down $0.16.
American International Group (AIG) an $0.08 loss.
Ford Motor Co (F) bucked the overall trend with a $0.04 gain.
JPMorgan Chase (JPM) $0.77 loss. JPMorgan Chase has repaid $25 billion to TARP.
Regions Financial (RF) down $0.26.
And then came Pfizer (PFE), tenth in volume, $0.42 gain there.
Fedex (FDX) itself down $0.72, traded about $1 lower this morning after reporting fourth quarter earnings excluding items, $0.64 a share. That was $0.13 better than the Street expected. However, the company forecast first quarter earnings of only $0.30 to $0.45, well below the Wall Street estimate of $0.70 a share.
International Paper (IP) a $0.91 drop. BMO Capital brokerage downgraded it from "market perform" to "under perform."
Another forest products firm got a downgrade, Domtar (UFS). JPMorgan downgraded it from "over weight" to "neutral" due to the stronger Canadian dollar and incidentally, the stock traded as low as $16.10 today and the stock you're seeing reflects the one for 12 reverse stock split incidentally.
Potash, Saskatchewan (POT) an $11.59 (INAUDIBLE) The company is cutting its potash production after a major German firm did. Standard & Poor's repeated a "sell" on Potash and the whole sector was rather weak.
Agrium (AGU) down $3.44.
Intrepid Potash (IPI) off over $2.
And almost a $5 drop in Mosaic (MOS).
Badger Meter (BMI) did well, up $2.75. The stock will be added to the Standard & Poor's small cap 600 index after the close next Tuesday. It'll replace WMS Industries, which is moving over to the Standard & Poor's madcap 400 index.
Actuant (ATU) up $1.51. Third quarter earnings excluding items, $0.08 a share, a penny above the Street estimate and that's despite a 35 percent drop in sales in the period.
NASDAQ's most active, Apple (AAPL) a $0.77 loss. The company released 45 passes to address rare security problems in its iPhones and iPods.
Research in Motion (RIMM) down $3.08.
Microsoft (MSFT) bucking the trend, $0.23 gain.
Google (GOOG) $0.84 loss.
And Qualcomm (QCOM) moved up $1.64. Goldman Sachs put out a "buy" on Qualcomm with a price target of $53 a share.
Intel (INTC) $0.28 gain there.
$0.12 rise in Cisco Systems (CSCO).
Oracle (ORCL) up $0.25.
Amazon.com (AMZN) a half dollar gainer.
And Baidu (BIDU) was up $6.92.
And finally, Savient Pharmaceuticals (SVNT) soared $3.34 after an FDA panel recommended approval of the company's gout treatment. The FDA will make a final decision on August 1st.
