Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
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PAUL KANGAS: More evidence tonight that the housing market is still heading south. The Commerce Department says sales of new homes fell 0.6 of a percent last month. That's way short of predictions. And there's a huge inventory of new homes sitting unsold, almost 300,000 of them. At this sluggish rate of sales, that amounts to a 10-month supply. Economists say the data show the housing market has still not hit bottom and when it does, recovery is going to be long and slow. Wall Street opened with a solid rally, choosing to focus not on those disappointing new home sales, but instead on a much stronger than expected 1.8 percent rise in May durable goods orders. Two hours into the trading session, the Dow was sporting a 97 point gain with the NASDAQ Index up 40 points. The market pulled back to await the Fed's rate decision and when no bullish surprises were announced, a blue chip slump resulted in a mixed closing for the market. The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended down 23.05 at 8299.86, but the NASDAQ Composite held onto a closing gain of 27.42 at 1792.42. Standard & Poor's 500 rose 5.84 to 900.04. In the bond market, the 10-year note fell 18/32 to 95 10/32, putting the yield at 3.69 percent.
New York exchange volume leader on 38.4 million shares, Bank of America (BAC) gaining $0.12.
Then Citigroup (C) with a $0.03 advance. The company plans to raise some salaries up to 50 percent in a move to offset lower bonuses under the Obama compensation guideline.
General Electric (GE) gained $0.10.
And so did Ford Motor Co (F). Ford aims to cut the number of all of its parts suppliers by almost half to 850 or so and that's in order to return to profitability.
Wells Fargo (WFC) up $0.26.
JPMorgan Chase (JPM) down $0.11.
And then a penny loss in Pfizer (PFE).
$0.06 gain in Motorola (MOT).
ExxonMobil (XOM) down $0.50.
Sprint Nextel (S) $0.16 loss there.
Monsanto (MON) fell $3.14 despite third quarter earnings of $1.25, down from $1.45 last year, but $0.08 better than expected. However, the company warned fiscal 2009 earnings will be at the low end of its previous guidance of $4.40 to $4.50 and that's due to increased competition for its Roundup products.
Boeing (BA) down $2.55 after dropping over $3 yesterday. Today Oppenheimer downgraded it from "market perform" to "under perform" because of the latest delay in the company's Dreamliner aircraft first test flight.
And then Freeport-McMoran Copper & Gold (FCX), the commodities stocks did well today, up $1.62 here. FBR Capital upgraded Freeport from "market perform" to "out perform."
And American Greetings (AM) had some pleasant ones for its shareholders today, up $3.26 or 51 percent, nice move there. First quarter earnings came in at $0.25, down from $0.27 last year, but $0.05 better than the Street was expecting and that's even though a 3.6 percent drop in sales occurred during that period. Standard & Poor's upgraded it from "sell" to "hold."
American Tower (AMT) up $1.81. JPMorgan upgraded it from "neutral" to "over weight."
And then Amerigroup (AGP) down $2.63. The managed health care company sees first quarter outpatient medical costs higher than expected due to bigger enrollments.
And finally SuperValu (SVU) down $1.88. Company sees first quarter earnings will be substantially below Street estimates because of higher than expected expenses.
Finally, what's this a new offering, Duoyuan Global Water (DGW) however it's pronounced, Chinese water treatment company, came to public at 5.5 million ADRs at $16 each. The high of the day $23.50, backed down a little bit, still a very nice debut.
Apple (AAPL) topped the active list up $2.21.
Then Oracle (ORCL) up $1.39. JPMorgan today said it's satisfied with yesterday's fourth quarter earnings of $0.46 a share and it boosted its price target from $23 to $27 a share.
Research in Motion (RIMM) up $1.38.
Followed by Microsoft (MSFT) which gained $0.13.
Google (GOOG) up $3.61.
Qualcomm (QCOM) $0.78 gain there.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) $0.04 advance.
First Solar (FSLR) moved up $6.77.
Intel (INTC) $0.29 gain.
And finally tenth in volume was Baidu (BIDU) up $10.51. This stock has more than doubled since the beginning of the year.
