Bank of America, CBBO, ZUMZ, TOL, KBH, SONC, HLX, DVR Popular Stocks
U.S. stocks were up Friday as the Dow Jones Industrial average climbed 46 points to 9830, the S&P 500 rose 5 points to 1070 and the Nasdaq Composite gained 11 points to 2138.
Bank of America Corporation (NYSE:BAC, $17.57, -$0.04, -0.23%) today announced the Board of Directors authorized a regular quarterly dividend of $18.1250 per share on the 7.25 percent Non-Cumulative Perpetual Convertible Preferred Stock, Series L. The dividend is payable on October 30, 2009 to shareholders of record as of October 1, 2009.
Columbia Bancorp (NASDAQ:CBBO, $2.53, +$1.34, 112.61%) is among the top percentage gainers in mid-day trade and surged more than 112 percent to $2.53 on huge volume of 1.78 million shares on no news.
Wedbush Morgan raised Zumiez Inc. (NASDAQ:ZUMZ, $16.94, +$1.61, 10.53%) to neutral, saying solid back-to-school sales could lead to another month of “accelerated sales results” and better-than-expected third-quarter earnings despite Zumiez’s “more muted promotional stance relative to other teen retailers.” The firm added that plans to protect margins.
The housing rebound will continue, even if there are a few bumps along the way, JPMorgan said in upgrading both Toll Brothers Inc. (NYSE:TOL, $22.27, +$0.74, 3.44%) and KB Home (NYSE:KBH, $20.35, +$0.66, 3.35%) to overweight. “While fundamentals will likely not demonstrate an uninterrupted solid rate of improvement over the next 6-12 months, we believe that not only is housing solidly past its trough, but over the next 24 months will continue to recover and drive further upside to the current rally in the home-builder stocks.”
Piper Jaffray cut Sonics Corp. (NASDAQ:SONC, $11.48, -$0.25, -2.17%) to underweight, after parsing the company’s weaker-than-expected fiscal year fourth-quarter same-store sales trends. The firm said though two-year trends are stabilizing, Sonic’s fourth-quarter trends are still below its expectations. The firm also noted it’s “not as optimistic about store-level margin improvement, especially when factoring in potentially higher beef trimmings in the 2H10 period.”
Helix Energy Solutions Group Inc. (NYSE:HLX, $15.58, -$0.18, -1.14%) priced its sale of at least 20.6 million Cal Dive International Inc. (NYSE:DVR, $10.09, -$0.55, -5.17%) shares at a 6% discount to Thursday’s closing price as the oil-services provider all but eliminates its stake in the marine contractor.
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