Navivest Stocks and Options Blog

Today’s Rally Seems To Be For Real

Jun 10, 2010 Stock Market

The very strong market rally today seems to be holding, although we are still a couple minutes away from the witching hour (3PM). In the past couple months, we’ve had quite a few days in which the market was up throughout the day, but once we hit 3PM, the selling kicked in and we lost all the gains.

At 2:59, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up 229.29 points or 2.32% to 10,128.54, which is very close to the day’s high of 10,150.76. Twenty-nine out of the thirty stocks in the index are up, with IBM (IBM) leading the way with a $3.63 gain to $127.53, while Cisco (CSCO) is the laggard, down $0.10 to $22.68.

Tags: ibm, Stock Market, Stocks

IBM Leading Dow Rally With 4% Gain

May 12, 2010 Company News, Stock to watch

Shares of IBM (IBM) are up $5.09 to $131.98, helping to boost the Dow to a 132.63 points gain in late trading. The company announced this morning that it will be spending $20 billion on acquisitions over the next five years.

Tags: ibm, Technical Analysis

Stock Market Report – 04/27/10

Apr 27, 2010 Stock Market

The stock market finally got stopped in its tracks on Tuesday, with all the major U.S indices falling steeply on worries over Greece and on concerns that Greece’s contagion could possibly spread to Portugal and Spain. A ratings cut of both Greece’s and Portugal’s debt by ratings agency Standard and Poor’s further exacerbated the situation.

Standard and Poor’s cut its long-term local and foreign currency sovereign issuer credit rating on Portugal from “A+’ from ‘A-’ and cut its rating on Greece to “BB+”, which is considered junk status.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 213.04 points to close at 10,991.99, a loss of 1.9%, NASDAQ dropped 51.48 points to close at 2,471.47, a loss of 2%, the S&P 500 was off 28.34 points, to close at 1,183.71 or 2.3%, while the Russell 2000 ended the session down 17.59 points or 2.38%, to close at 721.27.

Among Dow stocks, Caterpillar (CAT), which rose from a close of $68.78 on Friday, to a close of $71.65 on Monday on the company’s latest earnings news, gave up all those gains on Tuesday, dropping $3.12 to $68.53. Chevron (CVX) was the next biggest dropper, losing $2.36 to $80.23, followed by United Technologies (UTX) – $74.32 -$2.08 and IBM (IBM) – $128.82 -$1.91.

3M (MMM), which reported better than expected Q1 2010 earnings before the bell, was the only gainer, adding $0.53 to $87.97. The stock was as high as $90.25 earlier in the session. Wal-mart (WMT) was unchanged at $54.04.

In broader trading, Cummins Inc (CMI) was the biggest gainer in the S&P 500, with a gain of $2.09 to close at $72.40, followed by Avery Dennison (AVY), also up by $2.09 to close at $41.39. Every other advancing stock in the S&P 500 rose by less than $1.25.

Washington Post (WPO) was the biggest point decliner, with a drop of $14.76, to close at $517.51, followed by MasterCard (MA) – $254.82 -$10.93, CME Group (CME) – $333.26 -$8.49, Apple (AAPL) – $266.04 -$7.46 and AIG (AIG) $37.37 -$7.14.

Tags: caterpillar, goldman sachs, ibm, Stock Market, united technologies

Stock Market Report – 04/26/10

Apr 26, 2010 Earnings, Stock Market

Although the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed off the highs of the day, the trading range for the day was 11,187.65 -11,258.01, the index kept up its slow creep to the upside, extending the number of winning sessions to six straight and making it thirty three up days out of the last forty one sessions. Sixteen Dow stocks closed higher, with fourteen falling. The NASDAQ and the S&P 500 closed marginally lower.

The Dow finished the session up 0.75 points to close at 11,205.03; the NASDAQ lost 7.20 points to close at 2,522.95, while the S&P 500 was off by 5.23 points, finishing the session at 1,212.05.

Caterpillar (CAT) was the stand out and kept the Dow in positive territory for the day. The stock rallied $2.87 to $71.65, a 4.17% gain on the company’s 2010 Q1 results, which was released before the markets opened.

For the period, Caterpillar reported a profit of $0.36 per share, a dramatic improvement over the $0.19 loss reported in the year ago first quarter period. Excluding special items, the company reported adjusted profits of $0.50 per share, from $0.39 per share in Q1 2009. Revenue came in at $8.24 billion from $9.23 billion in Q1 2009. Analysts had been looking for the company to report earnings per share of $0.39 on revenue of $8.84 billion.

Among other Dow stocks, 3M (MMM) was up $0.86 to $87.44, IBM (IBM) added $0.74 to $130.73 and Dupont (DD) was up $0.73 to $40.95.

In Broader trading, online movie rental company Netflix (NFLX), rallied $8.44 or 8.46% to close at $108.17 on no news. Last Wednesday, the company reported earnings that sent its stock soaring from $86.98 to $100.25 on Thursday.

Whirlpool (WHR) was another big gainer, climbing $10.20 or 9.98%, to close at $112.42. The company before the bell, reported 2010 Q1 earnings of $2.13 per share, better than the $1.33 per share analysts had been looking for. Revenue came in at $4.27 billion, against forecasts of $3.79 billion.

Tags: caterpillar, dow, dupont, ibm, nasdaq, s&p 500, Stock Market, Stocks

Novell Up After Hours On Takeover News

Mar 2, 2010 Mergers & Acquisition, Stock to watch, Stocks On The Move

Shares of embattled network software maker Novell (NOVL) are rising in after hours trading, on news that hedge fund, Elliot Associates, has made an offer of $5.75 a share or roughly $2 billion, for the company.

The stock is trading slightly above that, up $1.23 to $5.98, as traders place bets that better offers might emerge from other networking-related concerns such as Microsoft (MSFT) and Cisco (CSCO) or maybe even IBM (IBM).

Novell’s stock, which was once a very hot commodity back in the nineties, have severely lagged the broader market in the past ten years, dropping 88.88% from the ten year high of $42.44 that was reached on January 4, 1999.

Tags: acquisition, cisco, elliot associates, ibm, merger, microsoft, novel