Tobacco Stocks In The News, Here’s What Happened.
Stocks retreated today. A modest
rally reversed to small losses for equities today as traders await Fed Chairman
Greenspan’s testimony before the Joint Economic Committee.
Tobacco issues including Altria Group
(
MO |
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PowerRating), Carolina Group
(
CG |
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PowerRating), Loews
(
LTR |
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PowerRating), and Reynolds American
(
RAI |
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PowerRating) traded
higher today as the Justice Department drastically cut the companies’ claim for
funding programs to help people stop smoking. Federal prosecutors reduced their
demand to $10 billion from $130 billion.
Texas Instruments
(
TXN |
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PowerRating))
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 |
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PowerRating).
Kirk Kerkorian will own 40.93 million shares of General Motors
(
GM |
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PowerRating) after his Tracinda Corporation buys all of the 18.93 million shares
tendered into its offer.
ImClone
(
IMCL |
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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 |
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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 |
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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: Disk Drives
(
$DDX.X |
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Chart |
News |
PowerRating) +0.84%
Broker Dealers
(
$XBD.X |
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PowerRating)
+0.71% Networking
(
$NWX.X |
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PowerRating)
+1.62%
Weak sectors are: Airlines
(
$XAL.X |
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PowerRating)
-1.51% Home Builders
(
$HGX.X |
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PowerRating) -1.49% Healthcare
(
$HMO.X |
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PowerRating)
-1.07%
| Dow | -6.21 | 10,476.86 |
| Nasdaq | -6.98 | 2060.18 |
| S&P 500 | -2.59 | 1194.67 |
The dollar was +0.42 at
87.90
Crude Oil was -0.08 at
52.46
Gold was -0.60 at 423.70
1.6 billion on the Nasdaq.
Market breadth was negative.
| NYSE | Issues | |
| Advancing | 1390 | Up Vol 573 |
| Declining | 1864 | Down Vol 698 |
| 1.67 | 0.82 | |
| Nasdaq |
||
| Advancing | 1275 | Up Vol 607 |
| Declining | 1759 | Down Vol 942 |
| 1.17 | 0.64 |
Stocks in the News
Cooper Cos.
(
COO |
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PowerRating)
beat by 0.08 and issued mixed guidance.
Disney’s
(
DIS |
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PowerRating) Iger said he had “opened up talks again with Pixar
(
PIXR |
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PowerRating).
Brice Wightman