New 52 Week Highs: Wipro, PG&E

Shares of IT company Wipro touched a new 52 week high Thursday, of 17 dollars and 32 cents per share. That's more than triple the company's 52 week low of a little over 5 dollars per share hit in March. Today Wipro signed a co-development deal with Oracle (ORCL) to develop multiple solutions for five different industries including communication, retail, consumer products, hi-tech, and industrial manufacturing.

Yesterday, Wipro announced it had signed a three year deal with New England water utility Aquarion Water Company to provide support services for business software from SAP (SAP). Last month Wipro was named as a leader in SAP implementation services, by Forrester Research. Also last month Wipro entered into a partnership with BP (BP) to provide IT applications development and maintenance services. BP said it selected Wipro in part for its knowledge of the Oil and Gas sector, and also cited the company's expertise in delivering new IT solutions.

In Thursday afternoon trading, shares of Wipro had retreated off of the new high, and were trading down on the day by just under one percent.

And shares of PG&E Corporation (PCG) also hit a new 52 week high, at 41 dollars and 82 cents per share. PG&E operates Pacific Gas and Electric Company, one of the largest natural gas and electric utilities in the United States, and widely owned for its steady dividend, currently at about a 4% annual yield. PG&E has raised its dividend in recent years: after paying quarterly dividends at a rate of 30 cents per share since the late 1990s, the company raised its dividend to 33 cents in 2005, to 36 cents in 2007, to 39 cents in 2008, and up to 42 cents earlier this year. This week PG&E announced it was ranked among the top ten companies globally for climate change reporting, by the Carbon Disclosure Project, and tied for first place with Public Service Enterprise Group (PEG) in the ranking among utility companies.

On Thursday afternoon, PG&E shares were trading near the new high at 41 dollars and 69 cents per share, up about one and a half percent on the day.

The preceeding is a transcript of the MarketNewsVideo.com video published at: http://www.marketnewsvideo.com/?id=20090952WeekHighs092409&mv=1.

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