Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Thursday, June 25, 2009
|
|
|
|
PAUL KANGAS: Wall Street posted improving gains this morning as investors put aside an unexpected rise in weekly jobless benefit claims in favor of a smaller than expected and revised 5.5 percent decline in first quarter GDP. By noontime, the Dow was up 152 points and NASDAQ rose 31 points. The rally held its ground as the Treasury's seven-year note auction received strong demand this afternoon, lowering bond yields, so the market closed near the day's highest levels. The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended up 172.54 points at 8,472.40. The NASDAQ Composite was up 37.20 at 1,829.54. Standard & Poor's 500 added 19.32 points to close at 920.26. In the bond market, the 10-year note gained 1 7/32 to 96 17/32, putting the yield down to 3.54 percent.
Big board volume leader on 65.7 million shares, Tyco Electronics down $0.20. It was active because of index fund selling since the stock came out of the Standard & Poor's 500 index today.
Bank of America (BAC) showed no change.
Citigroup (C) down a penny.
General Electric (GE) up $0.16.
And ExxonMobil (XOM) in the strong oil group today, up $1.43.
Motorola (MOT) edged up $0.14.
Ford Motor (F) a nickel gainer.
Pfizer (PFE) $0.61 advance.
Boston Scientific (BSX) up $0.49. Former Zimmer Holdings CEO Ray Elliott will replace retiring Boston Scientific CEO Jim Tobin.
JPMorgan Chase (JPM) was up $0.68.
Lennar (LEN), the big home builder, up $1.37. The company had a second quarter loss of $0.76 a share, $0.06 worse than expected. But it did reduce its inventory of new homes and had a pick up in new orders and that helped the stock a lot as the group.
Deere & Co. (DE) up $2.12. Goldman Sachs sees U.S. farmer income up 10 to 15 percent next year, positive for Deere certainly.
JC Penney (JCP) up $1.60. JPMorgan upgraded it from "neutral" to "over weight," boosted its price target from $28 to $33 a share.
Nike (NKE) down $1.74. Fourth quarter earnings came in at $0.99, up from last year's $0.94, $0.03 better than expected, but Nike warned of a 12 percent drop in future worldwide orders and that hurt the stock obviously.
Tween Brands (TWB) up $1.45. It'll be acquired by Dress Barn for .47 shares of Dress Barn and today that's a value of about $6.77 a share for Tween Brand holders.
Hertz Global Holdings (HTZ), the car rental, up $1.12. The company says that U.S. and European car rental businesses have stabilized and reservations are picking up and that helped the whole car rental sector.
Let's have a look at two other majors. Avis (CAR) doing nicely and $ Thrift Auto (DTG) a big gain, $2.68.
Jefferies Group (JEF), the brokerage, up $1.35. The company sees second quarter net earnings of at least $50 million on a record amount of revenues exceeding $500 million.
Cameron International (CAM), this is in the oil business, up $2.30. Goldman Sachs upgraded it from "neutral" to "buy."
Apple (AAPL) topped the NASDAQ actives, up $3.64.
Followed by Microsoft (MSFT) up $0.32.
Research in Motion (RIMM) down $1.68.
Google (GOOG) a gain of $6.48.
And First Solar (FSLR) plunged $11.71 after (INAUDIBLE) brokerage downgraded it from "buy" to just a "hold" rating.
Oracle (ORCL) was up $0.37.
Followed by Intel (INTC) $0.21 advance there.
Qualcomm (QCOM) gained $1.07.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) $0.42 advance.
And Amazon.com (AMZN) up $2.93.
Elsewhere, Bed Bath & Beyond (BBBY) gaining $2.69. First quarter earnings came in at $0.34, up from last year's $0.30, $0.09 above the Street estimate and all this occurred despite a 1.6 percent drop in same store sales.
A new issue today, Medidata Solutions (MDSO), they're in the software business. The company was offered at 6.3 million shares or it offered to the public, 6.3 million shares. It priced at $14, hit a high of $19 during the trading session and still closed at $17 with a nice gain of $3 over the offering price.
And those are the stocks in the news tonight.
