Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Monday, November 02, 2009
|
|
|
|
PAUL KANGAS: Several better than expected reports on the economy today eased concerns about the strength of the recovery. The Institute for Supply Management says manufacturing grew at its fastest pace since last month since April of 2006. Pending home sales increased for the eighth straight month in September, rising over 6 percent. They were buoyed by that first-time homebuyer tax credit. Meanwhile, construction spending rose 0.8 percent in September, when a drop was expected. But President Obama today warned of more job losses to come in a White House pow-wow with his recovery advisory board. The president said creating new jobs is his administration's overriding focus. On Wall Street, that unexpected profit at Ford Motor helped Wall Street open with a rebound from Friday's steep sell-off. An hour into trading, the Dow posted a 135-point gain and the NASDAQ was up 21 points. Bullish enthusiasm was also fueled by today's better than expected economic readings. By midday, sellers started taking profits however, wiping out the early gains. But then a late rally lifted stocks to a positive close. The Dow Industrial Average ended with a gain of 76.71 at 9789.44. The NASDAQ was up 4.09 ending at 2049.20, while the Standard & Poor's 500 added 6.69 points to 1042.88. In the bond market, the 10-year note fell 10/32 to 101 21/32, putting the yield at 3.42 percent.
Big board volume leader on 109 million shares was Citigroup (C) losing a dime a share.
Then came CIT Group (CIT), down $0.47, big percentage drop. You heard about the bankruptcy of course and the stock will be rendered worthless quite soon if not already.
Bank of America (BAC) a nickel gainer.
Ford Motor Co (F) up $0.58. Third quarter operating earnings as you heard up $0.26 in a very positive outlook.
General Electric (GE) was up $0.21.
Sprint Nextel (S) down $0.09.
Followed by Pfizer (PFE) with an $0.08 loss.
Motorola (MOT) up $0.46. Citigroup upgraded it from "hold" to "buy."
AT&T (T) down $0.08.
And then Wells Fargo (WFC) with a $0.09 gain.
US Bancorp (USB) a $0.62 closing advance. This is a major holding of Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway and USB will acquire FBOP Corporation. That's a failed bank holding company that owns nine smaller banks and incidentally, Sandler O'Neill upgraded USB today from "hold" to "buy."
Black & Decker (BDK) closed up just $0.12, but after the close, Stanley Works said it will acquire the company for 1.27... of its share for each Black and Decker share and that's worth around $57.50 as of today. In after hours trading, Black and Decker was up over $10 a share at the $57.50 per share level. Stanley Works dropped $0.08 to close at $45.15.
Encore Acquisition (EAC) up $7.60. Denbury Resources will acquire this company in a deal worth about $50 a share for EAC. It'll be comprised of a $15 share cash payment plus $35 in Denbury stock. Denbury was down $1.51 to $13.09.
Terra Industries (TRA), the fertilizer company, up $2.14. CF Industries has sweetened its takeover bid. It's now $32 a share cash, plus a little over a tenth of a share of CF. That deal's worth about $40.60 a share to Terra as of today.
Clorox (CLX) up $0.17. The company in with first quarter earnings 23 percent higher than last year at $1.11. The Street estimate was only for $0.95.
And Revlon (REV), which had a good move last week on better than expected earnings, up another $1.64 today. Moody's upgraded the company's outlook to "stable."
LDK Solar Co (LDK) down $1.55. A German firm called Q-Cells has ended its 2007 solar wafer contract because LDK did not fulfill significant contractual obligations.
In NASDAQ trading Apple (AAPL) topped the active list, up $0.81.
Research in Motion (RIMM) down nearly $3. Citigroup downgraded it from "buy" to "sell" on increasing competition from other smart phone makers like Motorola and Google.
Google (GOOG) itself down $2.13.
Microsoft (MSFT) $0.15 gain.
Amazon.com (AMZN) edged up $0.03.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) $0.19 gain.
But Intel (INTC) dropped $0.10.
Human Genome (HGSI) up $6.59. Late stage trials of the company's lupus treatment are showing great promise.
Baidu (BIDU) down $2.47.
And Qualcomm (QCOM) $0.48 gain.
In other NASDAQ trading, Vertex Pharmaceuticals (VRTX) up $2.59. The company's hepatitis C treatment was effective in mid-stage trials, good news there.
And those are the stocks in the news tonight.
