Like Dividends? Try These 2 Stocks

  • June 8, 2005
  • Brice Wightman

Stocks are higher on positive tech news and action
by billionaire Kirk Kerkorian.

Texas Instruments (TXN)
said that it is seeing encouraging signs, with a book-to-bill ratio above one.
TXN now sees 0.27 to  0.30 for Q2. Goldman boosted its 2005 and 2006 EPS
estimates. on Motorola
(
MOT |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating).

Kirk Kerkorian will own 40.93 million shares of General Motors
(
GM |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) after his Tracinda Corporation buys all of the 18.93 million shares
tendered into its offer.

ImClone
(
IMCL |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) is up on the news that Carl Icahn is interested in
buying $100 million in shares, plus a successful Phase III Erbitux trial.

The Semiconductor Industry Association predicts record chip sales in
2005. The Mortgage Banker’s Association said first time mortgages fell 6.5%
last week.

Prudential upgraded Caterpillar
(
CAT |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) to overweight.  CAT
announced a 2:1 split and also upped its dividend by 22% to 50 cents/share from
41 cents on a pre-split basis. It is the largest increase in the company’s
history (on a pre-split basis). Separately, Siebel
(
SEBL |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) is initiating a 0.025/share quarterly cash
dividend.

Wholesale inventories rose 0.8% in April, double the forecast. Investor’s
Intelligence reports the bears are fading away. Current reading: Bulls 
50.6%; Bears  20.9%. Crude inventories fell 3 million barrels; gasoline
inventories fell 100K barrels.

Mining company China Shenua Energy was priced at 7.50 hkd, the low end
of range.

Strong sectors are:  Oil Services

(
$OSX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) +1.90%   Natural Gas
(
$XNG.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
+1.82%      Gold
(
$HUI.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
+1.62%  

      

Weak sectors are:   Airlines
(
$XAL.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) -1.10%   
 Healthcare Providers
(
$HMO.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) -0.42%    
 Homebuilders
(
$HGX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
-0.35%    

Dow +45.66 10,528.73
Nasdaq +4.85 2072.01
S&P 500 +4.11 1201.37

The dollar is -0.19 at
87.30

Crude Oil is +0.79 at
54.55

Gold is +1.80 at 426.10

ce=”Arial” size=”2″ face=”Arial”>Volume is 669 million on the NYSE and
700 million on the Nasdaq.

Market breadth is positive.

NYSE Issues
Advancing 1897 Up Vol 416
Declining 1132 Down Vol 178
1.67 2.33
Nasdaq
Advancing 1497 Up Vol 395
Declining 1280 Down Vol 254
1.16 1.55

Stocks in the News

Cooper Cos. (COO)
beat by 0.08 and issued mixed guidance.

Disney’s (DIS)
Iger said he had “opened up talks again with Pixar” (PIXR).

Brice Wightman

 

 

 

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