Paul Kangas' Stocks in the News
Tuesday, November 03, 2009
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PAUL KANGAS: The transport stocks were about the only thing moving higher on Wall Street this morning thanks to that Burlington Northern acquisition. Selling in the blue chips came in the face of a better than expected .9 rise in September factory orders. It appears investors were hesitant to make moves ahead of tomorrow's Fed policy decision. After being down as much as 70 points though, the Dow partially recovered on news of a rebound in auto sales in October. We'll have more on those sales in a moment. So the Dow closed off only 17.53 points at 9771.91. The NASDAQ Composite actually gained 8.12 to 2057.32, while the Standard & Poor's 500 Index was up 2.53 ending at 1045.41. In the bond market, the 10-year note fell 12/32 to 101 9/32, putting the yield at 3.47 percent.
Big board volume leader on 77 1/2 million shares, Citigroup (C) moving up $0.05 a share. Followed by Ford Motor Co (F) down $0.14.
Bank of America (BAC) up $0.17.
Schering-Plough (SGP) was down $0.25. The company today completed its merger into Merck.
And Merck (MRK) itself down $0.59 a share.
General Electric (GE) dropped $0.15.
Pfizer (PFE) a $0.06 loss.
But there you see it, Burlington Northern (BNI) up $20.93 on that $100 a share buyout bid from Berkshire Hathaway. Sixty percent of the bid will be in cash and 40 percent in Berkshire stock.
And then let's have a look at some of the other big rail stocks moving higher today. CSX (CSX), Kansas City Southern (KSU), Norfolk Southern (NSC), Union Pacific (UNP), all significant gains.
Moving along in the actives, Motorola (MOT) up a nickel a share.
And then Ferro (FOE), tenth in volume, down $0.36. The company priced 34 3/4 million of its shares offered at $5.60. That was the price.
Berkshire (BKB.B) up $60.35, not only to the reaction to the Burlington Northern acquisition, but as you heard, to the 50 to one stock split. That will bring the stock down to around the mid-60s, $65, $66 after the 50 for one split, hard to say it, hard to even think it. And the Berkshire A stock today incidentally closed at $100,450. That was up $1,700.
Mastercard (MA) down $3.45. Third quarter earnings, $3.45, up from a loss last year. The Street estimate was only for $2.94 but the company sees revenue growth in the next two years to be shy of Wall Street estimates and that sent the stock down.
Archer-Daniels (ADM) up $1.39 despite sharper lower first quarter earnings, $0.77, down from last year's $1.62, but that was $0.20 above the Street estimate.
Kraft Foods (KFT) down a dime in regular way trading. After the close, the company came out with third quarter earnings, $0.55, down from $0.91 and in after hours trading, the stock fell nearly $1 from that price.
Energizer (ENR), the battery company, down $6.08. Fourth quarter earnings fell to $0.53 from $1.67 last year and sales were down about 4 percent.
On the upside, Landry's Restaurants (LNY) gaining $2.93. The chairman and CEO Tilman Fertitta is making a sweetened $14.75 per share buyout bid.
And then Stanley Works (SWK) up $4.54, a positive reaction to its acquisition of Black and Decker in an all-stock deal. That's worth about $60 a share for Black and Decker and that stock closed at $62, up $14.86 today.
NASDAQ's most active, Apple (AAPL) down $0.56.
Followed by Intel (INTC) $0.51 loss.
Research in Motion (RIMM) rebounding from yesterday's loss, $3.87, positive comments from National Bank Financial and the analyst there said if the stock goes a whole lot lower, it becomes more susceptible to a takeover.
Microsoft (MSFT) $0.35 loss.
And then Google (GOOG) up $3.30.
Amazon.com (AMZN) lost $0.47.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) a $0.09 drop.
Human Genome (HGSI) up another $2.79 after jumping over $6.50 yesterday on its promising treatment for lupus.
Qualcomm (QCOM) up $0.41.
And Baidu (BIDU) gained $7.59.
In other NASDAQ trading, Diedrich Coffee (DDRX) ground out a gain of $5.47. Peet Coffee and Tea Company will acquire Diedrich for $26 a share.
Those are the stocks in the news tonight.
