Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA), announced that they will be giving $250 million to Cray Inc. (NASDAQ : CRAY) and $244 to IBM (NYSE : IBM) for the development of very large supercomputers. They have been selected to develop DARPA’s High Productivity Computing Systems (HPCS) program. The amount of money that the government spends on pure computing power is enormous, and it will bring results quickly. Investors also feel that this is good news for the companies involved, as both IBM and Cray stock have gone up today. IBM closed up 44 cents and CRAY closed up $1.70 on the day. CRAY stock had a huge volume of shares traded today. They ended the day at 4.80M, way above their average of 240 thousand. When I think of government supercomputers, I immediately picture the movie “Wargames”. These computers are built completely to compute complex formulas and advanced function but I could picture them saying, “Would you like to play a game?”
Category Archives: Stocks
This category will be for stock news and announcements.
Google Surges Past $500
At about 9:50am this morning Google Inc. (NASDAQ : GOOG) shares raced past the $500 milestone. This is an amazing milestone for the company to surpass having been publically traded since August 2004. Shares continued their long rise for the company as investors feel that the stock can only head higher. So far in today’s trading the stock is at 504.22 and is up 1.85% or 9.13 per share.
Air Canada shares fall in Market Debut
Shares of Air Canada (TSX : AC.A) slipped in morning trading during its market debut on the Toronto Stock Exchange. The recently spun off IPO of ACE Aviation Holdings was priced at $21 per share, but the stock fell by about 6% to trade at $19.75 as of noon EST. The IPO raised C$605 million with $325million for ACE. When the IPO is complete, ACE will continue to control 75% of the company and Air Canada will have $2 billion in cash or cash equivalents.
An interesting side note, the last time shares of Air Canada traded publically, they were going for 6 cents back in August 25, 2004. That was the day they got delisted from the stock exchange, after having been in bankruptcy protection for 16 months.
Google moving on up
The past couple days has seen Google Inc’s (NASDAQ : GOOG) stock rise to its highest point ever. It is very steadily creeping towards the $500 per share plateau and could easily get to that point in the next few days.  Already today it has reached as high as 498.29 around noon. This isn’t the only search engine company that is on the move up though. Baidu (NASDAQ: BIDU) has also been increasing steadily since their Ebay announcement. As well, Baidu has announced a partnership with a six antivirus firms. Stock in Baidu has also risen to its highest ever levels, with share prices getting up as high as 106.12 per share. It seems that if you are a search engine and you control your market your stock is going to head up but if you do not control the market, like Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO), your stock is going to creep downwards and stay basically unchanged. These are exciting times in the technology front with the powerhouses pushing forward and leaving the competition behind. It’s better to partner up with the big guns than be left behind.
Hershey Recalls Contaminated Chocolate Bars
The Hershey Company (NYSE : HSY) recalled some of its chocolate and candy bars after quality control tests discovered a possible salmonella contamination. Affected bars include Oh Henry! bars, Reese Peanut Butter Cups, and Glosettes; among others. Their halloween and Christmas products are not affected since they are made at a different time of year (no wonder they taste different). The good news for the public is that the majority of the possibly contaminated product are still in the distribtution chain or in warehouses. If you have a chocolate bar with a date code between 6415 – 6455 you should call Hershey and arrange for a refund (don’t eat it to test it out). The contamination was at the Hershey plant in Smith Falls, Ontario. All production at the plant has been suspended and no news as to when it will resume.
Canadian Tire increases Q3 profit 13%
On Thursday Canadian Tire Corp. (TSX : CTC.A) announced that strong growth in their retail and financial divisions attributed to a increase of 13% (95.4 million) in third-quarter profits. The retail sales rose 9% to $2.43 billion versus last year’s $2.23 billion. These earnings will equate to $1.16 per share which is over some analysts estimates of $1.10 per share. I am expecting that they will have a really strong fourth quarter with increased spending at their 34 new locations across Canada. As well, Canadian Tire really does a lot of marketing during the Christmas season so sales should pick up substantially. Shares of Canadian Tire fell on the markets on Friday to 73.45 or by 0.31%.
11 Million Bottles of Acetaminophen Recalled
Drug supplier Perrigo Company (NASDAQ : PRGO) announced today that they are recalling 11 million bottle of the over the counter drug acetaminophen. They have discovered that some of the pills were contaminated and contained metal fragments. So far, no injuries or illness has been reported. The recall will only be affecting the bottles containing 500mg tablets. With this news, Perrigo stocks are moving down, so far down 3.78% to 17.33 in Thursday morning trading. The recall is likely to cost $2.9 million and will affect the companies 2007 earnings. Perrigo supplys over the counter medications to such retailers as Wal-Mart Store Inc, CVS Corp, Walgreens Co, and Costco Wholesale Corp.
Baidu.com Partners with Ebay
Baidu.com Inc. (NASDAQ : BIDU) and Ebay Inc. (NASDAQ : EBAY) announced today that they are forming a partnership. The details are still coming in but the main details are that Baidu will promote Ebay’s Chinese version of Paypal, Beibao, and that Baidu will be the exclusive text-based search advertising provider on the Eachnet auction site. This partnership is beneficial to both parties as it attempts to take on the Chinese market leader for auction sites, Alibaba.com which is partially owned by Yahoo Inc and Tencent Holdings Ltd.
The online advertising on the Eachnet site will begin trials in the first-quarter 2007. eBay and Baidu have said they don’t expect this deal to have a material impact on their financial results. I have to beg to differ though since partnerships like this will always affect the finances of the companies involved. The markets seemed to take note of the deal as Baidu, for the second day in a row, was on the rise, up around 3.75% to 97.40/share, while eBay Inc was up 0.83% to 32.83/share.
SIRIUS 3rd Quarter Loss Narrows
SIRIUS Satellite Radio (NASDAQ : SIRI) announced their 3rd quarter earnings report on Wednesday. In the report it showed that their net loss had decreased and their revenue more than doubled. Revenue doubled on strong subscriber growth during the quarter. During the 3rd quarter their net increase in subscribers was 441,000 to bring their total to 5.1 million. They maintained that their yearend forecast is 6.3 million subscribers. This is an excellent growth rate but the losses continued due to spending on new technology, and entertainment. Deals with Howard Stern, and the NFL are likely to bring in a lot of subscribers but they are also costly. During the morning trading the stock was up 2.44% to 4.19 and seemed to be rising.
Fedex Cancels Airbus A380 Order
Airbus SAS parent EADS NV (EPA : EAD) regretted to announce on Tuesday that Fedex (NYSE: FDX) had cancelled its 10-plane Airbus A380 order. This news hit the stock hard after Tuesday’s close but the stock seemed to rebound back to its weekly average by Wednesday morning over in Europe. It looked particularily bad at one point when the stock was down to 20.42 per share. As of now, the stock is trading around 21.24 and up on the day. After the cancellation, Airbus still has orders for 15 more cargo versions of the A380.  With this delay there has been some concern that more cancellations will follow.
The cancellation was brought on by “significant” delays, being blamed on persistent manufacuring problems. In order to fulfill their aircraft demands, Fedex has decided to go with Airbus rival manufacuter’s Boeing (NYSE : BA) 777 Freighter plane. They put in an order for 15 planes with an option for another 15. This is big news for Boeing who seems to continue to gain orders as people leave Airbus’s Superjumbo behind.