8/23/09 Barron's Slams Hewlett-Packard

Post #69 The following is brought to you by Intellivest Securities Research, Inc. The following is not intended as advertising by a broker-dealer and is not a research report.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed Friday at 9505.96 up 155.91 or 1.67% from Thursday's close of 9350.05. Of the 30 Dow Companies: 29 gained and 1 declined with the only loser being WalMart WMT $51.36 -0.35 0.68% 21,093,594 NYSE and the biggest gainer being Catepillar CAT $47.3 +1.80 3.96% 12,324,433 NYSE.

A read of Sunday's New York Times, AJC, Barron's 8/24/09 issues and what I reported on yesterday's blog from Saturday's 8/22/09 print editions of: Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Atl Journal Const, and Forbes 9/7/09 issue yielded the following stories about Dow Jones Industrial Average 30 component companies and the Dow with stories about the Dow aggregated first (some of the information about Friday's closing Dow appeared in my blog Friday afternoon) and then items about Dow Jones Industrial Average 30 companies presented alphabetically, followed by symbol and Friday's closing price and related data (yesterday's Saturday's harvest are included again below)(unless Sunday's editions are indicated, all newspaper articles are from Sat):

Dow: NYT pB2 "Dow Jones Stock Market Indexes Said to BE for Sale" written by Richard Perez-Pena and Michael J. de la Merced, says the News Corp. is in talks to sell its Dow Jones stock market index business, potentially separating the famous Dow Jones industrial average from The Wall Street Journal. A leading contender to buy the indexes would be MSCI Inc., a former Morgan Stanley unit that also builds indexes. Dow Jones retained Goldman Sachs to run the sales process. News Corp. bought Dow Jones two years ago. The managing editor of WSJ has traditionally chosen which 30 stocks are included int he Dow Jones Industrial Average. Dow Jones Indexes publishes thousands of other indexes, including broad samplings of national and continental stock markets and gauges of smaller national stock markets, specific industries' stocks, hedge funds, bonds and commodities in specific parts of the world. New Corp. doesn't release sales figures but in Dow Jones' last financial filings as an idnependent copany it said that a segmetn made up of the indexes generated $101.3 mil in revenue the first 9 months of '07, up 18.3 % from prior year with a profit margin of about 40%. Rupert Murdoch, the chairman of News Corp. agreed to pay ore than $5 bil for Dow Jones about $2 bil above its prior market value in order to acquire the WSJ. Since then print media have deeply slumped.
This story is also reported at WSJ pB1 "Dow Jones Weighs Sale of Stock-Index Operation" (Barron's p12 mentions the WSJ story") that includes a great sidebar of Milestones for the Dow Jones Industrial Average since it wa founded by Charles Dow, Edward Jones and Chales Bergstresser in 1882 and includes milestones such as 1906 when the average tops 100, 1987 when it crashed 23% in a day, 1989 when the DJIA topped 1000 and 2007 when News Corp buys Dow Jones. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is perhaps the world's best known stock market indicator. Introduced in 1896 by Charles Dow, a precursor version of mostly railroad companies started publishing in 1884, the aveage was designed to give investors a snapshot at overall market activity.

NYT pB1, "Home Sales Lift Markets To Highest Close of '09" saing Wall Street's pessimists and cautious investors keep waiting for the summertime rally to lose its footing. But on Friday, the bulls were again calling the shots. A pike in sales of previously owned homes and an optimistic sppech by Fed Res Chrman Ben Bernanke, sent investors on a buying spree that pushed the major indexes to their highest closings of the year. Pirces of il, copper and gold all rose, with crude oil rising 0.92 to 73.83 a barrel the highest closing price of the year. Exxon Mobil closed higher. CAT Caterpillar gained nearly 4%, the most among the Dow.

WSJ pA1 "Housing Lifts Recovery Hopes - Stocks Soar on 7.2% Spurt in Home Sales: Bernanke Optimistic but Foreclosures Loom" says sales ofe xisting homes in July jumped at the fastest rate in 10 years, sending stock prices up around the globe on hopes that the US housing market, a driver of the world's largest economy, is stabilizing after years of decline. Sales of single family homes increased 7.2% in July from a month earlier to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.24 million units.

WSJ pB1 "Dow Ends Up 155.91, A High Point for the Year" says stocks and oil jumped to new highs for the year on Fri. as storng sales of existing homes boosted investors' hopes for a US economic rebound.

WSJ pB3 "Cap Gains 3.3%; Brocade Sheds 4.8" in "Large Stock Focus" taht says better news on the housing market propelled stocks higher. it mentions CAT climbing 1.80 and Pfizer rising.

AJC Headline pA1 "Fed chief's words wow Wall Street - Dow hits new highs for year as Bernanke upbeat on economic prospects" says Fed Res. Chairman Ben Bernanke said what investors wanted to hear, that the economy is on the verge of recovery, and they responded with a rally that sent the major indexes to new highs for the year.

The current divisor for the Dow found at today's page B4 of The Wall St. Jrnl is .132319125 unchanged.

Friday's Dow Jones Industrial Average closing numerator was 1257.82 up 20.63 from Thursday's closing Dow numerator of 1237.24. This is the sum of all 30 closing prices. A short cut to the Dow numerator is to multiply the closing Dow by the Divisor. Now, if you divide the Dow numerator increase for Friday of 20.63 by the divisor you get 155.91, the increase in Thursday's Dow close.

The average closing price (the closing numerator divided by 30) of Friday's Dow Jones Industrial Average was 41.93 up 0.69 from Thurday's Dow Jones Industrial Average closing price of 41.34. The median closing price of Friday's Dow Jones Industrial Average was 38.26 up 0.79 from Thursday's Dow Jones median closing price of 37.47.

The highest closing price Friday again was IBM $119.9 +0.95 0.8% 8,305,443 NYSE and the lowest closing price Friday again was Alcoa AA $12.56 +0.13 1.05% 33,767,914 NYSE.

The lowest volume Friday was MMM $72.64 +1.41 1.98% 4,324,625 NYSE and the highest volume again was BAC BofAm $17.46 +0.32 1.87% 235,679,525 NYSE.

If Friday morning before the market opened you had purchased $100 of each of the Dow Jones Industrial Average 30 shares (assuming you could buy fractional shares and assuming no transaction costs) and sold at the close you would have made $2,070
($125,790 - $123,720)

AT&T T $26 +0.46 1.8% 30,826,228 NYSE: NYT pB3 "Apple Tells FCC it Is Still Pondering Google Voice Application for the iPhone" saying that Apple told FCC it did not reject an iPhone applicabtion submitted by Google in response to an FCC formal inquiry. Apply said tht Google Voice duplicated the functions of the iPhone which uses the AT&T network in the US and might confuse users. ATT filed its own letter with the FCC saying it was not consulted by Apple. Also reported at WSJ pB5 & AJC pA11.

Amex AXP $32.85 +0.33 1.01% 12,273,755 NYSE: NYT pB1 in a story about new fees and higher rates for credit cards speaks favorably about the Starwood Preferred Guest Amercian Express card saying the points are easy to use at hotels like Westin and W chains and they can easily be worth .03 cents or more.

AA $12.56 +0.13 1.05% 33,767,914 NYSE: No mentions found.

Bank of Am BAC $17.46 +0.32 1.87% 235,679,525 NYSE: NYT pB2 "Bank of America Adds a Director" says BAC which has lost 10 directors since April, elected Robert Scully, a former Morgan Stanley exec, to its board, which now has 14 members. Scully retired from Morgan Stanley's office of the chairman in Jan and ovesaw asset management, merchant banking and the Discover credit card business.

BRN's p13 says that on Monday 8/2 that will be additional disclosures on BAC's bonus awards to Merrill employees as a court reviews AC's SEC settlement.

BA $45.87 +1.13 2.53% 5,529,798 NYSE: No mentions found.

Caterpillar CAT $47.3 +1.80 3.96% 12,324,433 NYSE: NYT pB1, "Home Sales Lift Markets To Highest Close of '09" saing Wall Street's pessimists and cautious investors keep waiting for the summertime rally to lose its footing. But on Friday, the bulls were again calling the shots. A pike in sales of previously owned homes and an optimistic sppech by Fed Res Chrman Ben Bernanke, sent investors on a buying spree that pushed the major indexes to their highest closings of the year. Pirces of il, copper and gold all rose, with crude oil rising 0.92 to 73.83 a barrel the highest closing price of the year. Exxon Mobil closed higher. CAT Caterpillar gained nearly 4%, the most among the Dow.

WSJ pB2 has a story about how some corporations are injecting their own stock into their defined benefit plans and gives as examples CAT and 3M.

WSJ pB3 "Cap Gains 3.3%; Brocade Sheds 4.8" in "Large Stock Focus" taht says better news on the housing market propelled stocks higher. it mentions CAT climbing 1.80 and Pfizer rising.

CVX $69.73 +1.11 1.62% 15,265,007 NYSE: No mentions found.

CSCO $22.19 +0.30 1.37% 56,571,644 NASDAQ-GS: No mentions found.

KO $49.91 +0.49 0.99% 8,824,678 NYSE: No mentions found.

DIS $26.79 +0.90 3.48% 13,722,007 NYSE: Disney DD $32.71 +0.77 2.41% 7,758,077 NYSE: AJC p11 in a small item about the SEC dropping a stock optin backdating case against a Google board member and former dfo of Pixar Animation Studios it says that Pixar was acquired by Dis for $7.4 bil in '06.

Sun NYTimes p5 has a story about how the biggest six film companies, Paramount, Sony, 20th Century Fox, Univesal (owned by GE), Walt Disney Studios and Warner brothers all seem to hire 45 year old white guys as directors.

ExxonMobil XOM $69.92 +1.33 1.94% 26,162,685 NYSE: NYT pB1, "Home Sales Lift Markets To Highest Close of '09" saing Wall Street's pessimists and cautious investors keep waiting for the summertime rally to lose its footing. But on Friday, the bulls were again calling the shots. A pike in sales of previously owned homes and an optimistic sppech by Fed Res Chrman Ben Bernanke, sent investors on a buying spree that pushed the major indexes to their highest closings of the year. Pirces of il, copper and gold all rose, with crude oil rising 0.92 to 73.83 a barrel the highest closing price of the year. Exxon Mobil closed higher. CAT Caterpillar gained nearly 4%, the most among the Dow.

WSJ pB2 says that if proposed new regulations are passed regarding ETF small investors would be shut out but it says that investors shut out of ETFs would still have a few ways to track commodity prices such as XOM because shares of such copanies usually move with energy prices.

GE $14.21 +0.40 2.9% 90,569,058 NYSE: Sun NYTimes p5 has a story about how the biggest six film companies, Paramount, Sony, 20th Century Fox, Univesal (owned by GE), Walt Disney Studios and Warner brothers all seem to hire 45 year old white guys as directors.

HPQ $44.78 +0.80 1.82% 18,931,009 NYSE: Barron's "Tech Trade" by Eric J. Savits "View From the Top: No Rebound in Sight" says that HPQ posted July quarter results that were a little better than expectations, with revenue off just 2% from prior year but Savitz says that's misleading becauase all of the growth is from the addition of EDS and "the rest was rotten." Storage revenue was down 23%, PCs off 18%, software down 22% and printing off 20%. CEO Mark Hurd tried hard to sound upbeat saying conditions are stabilizing burt he conceded there hasn;t beein any pickup yet. Also HPQ's CFO Cathie Lesjak said that HPQ isn't expecting a corporate PC refresh cycle to be triggered by the debut later this year of Microsoft Windows 7.

HD $27.5 +0.82 3.07% 18,658,007 NYSE: BRN's p20 cover story is on Sears Holdings saying that hedge fund star Eddie Lampert had a ncie run but his tactics have doomed his investment. The storysays that Sears is going to continue to lose market share to more aggressive rivals such as WalMart, Home Depot, Lowe's Target and Kohls.

INTC $18.8901 +0.1801 0.96% 55,142,847 NASDAQ-GS: No mentions found.

IBM $119.9 +0.95 0.8% 8,305,443 NYSE: No mentions found.

JPM $43.66 +1.24 2.92% 42,791,613 NYSE: No mentions found.

JNJ $61.03 +0.08 0.13% 12,593,665 NYSE: No mentions found.

KFT $28.81 +0.46 1.62% 11,596,409 NYSE: No mentions found.

MCD $56.27 +0.13 0.23% 7,670,646 NYSE: No mentions found.

MRK $32.56 +1.22 3.89% 20,724,544 NYSE: No mentions found.

MSFT $24.41 +0.74 3.13% 68,994,377 NASDAQ-GS: NYT pB2 "Chinese Court jails and Fines Pirates of Windows Software" reports that a court in China sentenced 4 people to prison for distributing pirated versions of Microsoft's Windows XP and other software.

Barron's "Tech Trade" by Eric J. Savits "View From the Top: No Rebound in Sight" says that HPQ posted July quarter results that were a little better than expectations, with revenue off just 2% from prior year but Savitz says that's misleading becauase all of the growth is from the addition of EDS and "the rest was rotten." Storage revenue was down 23%, PCs off 18%, software down 22% and printing off 20%. CEO Mark Hurd tried hard to sound upbeat saying conditions are stabilizing burt he conceded there hasn;t beein any pickup yet. Also HPQ's CFO Cathie Lesjak said that HPQ isn't expecting a corporate PC refresh cycle to be triggered by the debut later this year of Microsoft Windows 7.

Brn's pM13 says Broadpoint.AmTech has upgraded MSFT to Buy and raised the target to 29 due to better than expected back to school sales which could lead to more positive Windows business in second half of '09. The analyst's fiscal 1Q EPS estimate wwas raised to 0.33 from .30 and FY10 was raised to 1.66 from 1.62 saying a corproate PC refresh will likely occur at a higher than normal rate in calendar year '10 but the PC refresh is not likely to happen with the Windows 7 upgrade. It says the shares are trading at 13 times the analyst's CY10 earnings estimate below the industry average of 16 times.

Sun NYT p3 "Whre Yahoo Leaves google in the Dust" says among all visitors to yahoo Finance who are referred by another site 47.8% came from another Yahoo property and only 28.8% of Google Finance visitors came from another google property. As for MSN Money, 72.2% came from other Microsoft sites.

PFE $16.64 +0.41 2.53% 64,798,377 NYSE: WSJ pB3 "Cap Gains 3.3%; Brocade Sheds 4.8" in "Large Stock Focus" taht says better news on the housing market propelled stocks higher. it mentions CAT climbing 1.80 and Pfizer rising.

PG $53.58 +0.56 1.06% 13,272,577 NYSE

MMM $72.64 +1.41 1.98% 4,324,625 NYSE: WSJ pB2 has a story about how some corporations are injecting their own stock into their defined benefit plans and gives as examples CAT and 3M.

TRV $48.2 +0.39 0.82% 5,727,424 NYSE: No mentions found.

UTX $58.71 +1.45 2.53% 6,822,849 NYSE: No mentions found.

Verizon VZ $31.37 +0.66 2.15% 14,031,992 NYS: Forbes 9/7 issue at p100 "Verizon's Export Market - Its pitch in Tokyo: Put all your telecom network eggs in our basket" says Verizon Business, the unit that sells wireline capacity to corporate customers is succeeding is succeeding in getting big corporations to run a single phone and Internet network across the globe to save time and money and profiles D. Blair Crump, senior vice pres. for worldwide sales.

NYT pB3 "Apple Tells FCC it Is Still Pondering Google Voice Application for the iPhone" saying that Apple told FCC it did not reject an iPhone applicabtion submitted by Google in response to an FCC formal inquiry. Apply said tht Google Voice duplicated the functions of the iPhone which uses the AT&T network in the US and might confuse users. ATT filed its own letter with the FCC saying it was not consulted by Apple. Story says that otherwireless carriers such as VZ do not have restrictions on applications that make calls over the Internet using their smartphones.

WMT $51.36 -0.35 0.68% 21,093,594 NYSE: BRN's p20 cover story is on Sears Holdings saying that hedge fund star Eddie Lampert had a ncie run but his tactics have doomed his investment. The storysays that Sears is going to continue to lose market share to more aggressive rivals such as WalMart, Home Depot, Lowe's Target and Kohls.