Posted: February 9, 2010 at 6:11 am
Apple (AAPL) has a problem. Steve Jobs created a huge surge in intereSt in the new iPad table computer when he introduced it. The interest has turned into concern about the price and features of the device.
According to Retrevo, which tracks consumer electronics trends, a new study it conducted “indicates a failure to convince any new buyers to consider the iPad. Not only did Apple fail to convince new buyers, it may have lost many potential buyers who now say they don’t think they need an Apple tablet computer.” Read Full Story »
Posted: February 9, 2010 at 5:56 am
It has probably occurred to Google (GOOG) management that customer service for its Nexus One handset has been poor and that has hurt the handset’s reputation. Google also has to compete with other phones powered by its Android mobile OS, so features and services are even more critical.
One of the most damaging parts of the Google Nexus marketing program is that the company has charged a $350 “equipment recovery fee” to people who return their Nexus handsets. The product is sold by N0.4 US cellular service T-Mobile, which gives Google a relatively small number of potential customers, certainly compared to the universe of consumers that Apple (AAPL) has access to because of its relationship with AT&T (T) which has a much largest customer base. Read Full Story »
Posted: February 9, 2010 at 5:42 am
The Census Bureau reports that the average American household spent $903 in 2008 on internet connections, cable TV, and video games. The New York Times estimates that figure will be $997 this year. The paper points out that cellphone costs could double the number to $2,000.
The number is only an average, so it is misleading. People below the poverty line probably spend very little on entertainment and “connectivity.” That means that households with incomes over $40,00o or $50,000 may well be spending $5,000 on products and services to connect to the internet, talk, text, shop online, watch TV, and play Madden 2010. Read Full Story »
Posted: February 9, 2010 at 5:12 am
US new vehicles sales reached almost 17 million in 2005. The number dropped to 10.4 million units in 2009, the lowest level in 27 years.
Most industry analysts expect the American car market to rebound to 12 million total sales in 2010. JD Power presents a more conservative forecast of 11.5 million.
Read Full Story »
Posted: February 9, 2010 at 5:02 am
Large consumer companies spend a great deal of marketing money on creating, preserving, and increasing the image of their brands. If a product has problems, the process does not always work. Toyota (NYSE:TM) has found that out the hard way.
A new study by CoreBrand sets values on the relationships between brand equity and market cap among large American companies and the research points to two conclusions. The first is that iconic brands are critical to the stock market value of the firms that own them. Hershey (NYSE:HSY) ranked first in the CoreBrands study followed by Coca-Cola (NYSE:KO) and Campbell Soup (NYSE:CPB) have spent billions of dollars to build brands which are universally recognized. The second is that weak companies with low market caps may find that their tattered brands make up an especially large part of their fallen share prices. This is probably because their companies are worth so little. Blockbuster (NYSE:BBI) and Harley-Davidson (NYSE:HOG) fall into this category.
The list:
Read Full Story »
Read more:
Research,
Uncategorized,
AAPL,
AXP,
BA,
BKS,
CBS,
CPB,
DELL,
DIS,
EBAY,
EK,
F,
FDX,
GE,
GOOG,
GPS,
HD,
HOG,
HSY,
JCP,
JNJ,
K,
KFT,
KO,
MCD,
MOT,
MSFT,
NKE,
NYT,
PEP,
SBUX,
SCHW,
SHLD,
SNE,
T,
TGT,
TIF,
TM,
UPS,
V,
VZ,
XOM,
YHOO
Posted: February 9, 2010 at 3:53 am
Reuters: Toyota (NYSE:TM) will recall the Prius.
Reuters: UBS (NYSE:UBS) posted a profit.
Reuters: Nissan posted a profit and raised forecasts.
Reuters: JAL will maintain its ties with AMR (NYSE:AMR). Read Full Story »
Read more:
Press Digest,
AMR,
BA,
CIT,
FNM,
FRE,
GOOG,
GS,
TM,
UBS,
XOM
Posted: February 9, 2010 at 3:30 am
Markets in Asia were mixed
The Nikkei fell .2% to 9,933. Toyota (NYSE:TM) rose.
The Hang Seng was up 1.2% to 19,790.
The Shanghai Composite rose .5% to 2,949.
At the open in Europe, the FTSE was flat at 5,090. The Dax was down .2% to 5,474. The CAC 40 was down .5% to 3,590. UBS (NYSE:UBS) fell after reporting earnings.
Data from Reuters and MarketWatch.
Douglas A. McIntyre
Posted: February 8, 2010 at 5:18 pm
Motorola’s (NYSE:MOT) handset business came close to collapse after its failure to replace its successful RAZR cost it the No.2 global market share position in its industry. The firm’s shares crashed from over $26 in late 2006 to just above $3 last March. The stock trades at $6.55 now. Motorola’s new Droid product has shown early success, and experts believe that the company has a modest chance of a profit in its cellphone business by the end of this year.
Motorola still dominates one market–the US. comScore reports that the company had 23.5% of the original equipment manufacturer business in America the fourth quarter, down from 24.9% in the third. Read Full Story »
Posted: February 8, 2010 at 4:53 pm
Which US companies of significant size have among the highest odds of declaring bankruptcy? According to recent data from Audit Integrity, four firms are in extraordinary financial trouble. These corporations each has a high Audit Integrity Accounting and Governance Risk (AGR). The risk numbers are created by an analysis in which Audit Integrity examines over 100 accounting and governance metrics from a company’s publicly filed information. Read Full Story »
Posted: February 8, 2010 at 4:16 pm
Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS) is driving while intoxicated. The company cannot find its footing and cannot find its way home. In fact, things are getting to the point that many holders and traders are starting to hope that the price of the stock is low enough that the company will just get acquired. The video game giant reported non-GAAP earnings of $0.33 EPS and $1.35 billion in revenue versus Thomson Reuters estimates of $0.31 EPS and $1.34 billion in revenues. It is not this quarter that is a mess, even though it issued an earnings warning.
Read Full Story »
Posted: February 8, 2010 at 3:49 pm
How bad do things get for major brands suddenly under fire? If you have followed the brand damage assault against Toyota Motor Corp. (NYSE: TM), you know it gets bad for a brand and very bad for shareholders. Imagine if the recalls upon recalls that have continued morphing had started as the beginning of January rather than at the end of January. That -8% comparable sales for January would have been far worse.
We still have three weeks before the February sales data is out, and the only thing that might keep the year -over-year sales figures from looking suicidal in February is that a year ago was perhaps the peak of the economic misery when consumers were getting worried about having to live in a barter economy. Yet it seems that some traders and investors have started trying to make the bet that the worst has been seen for the stock.
Read Full Story »
Posted: February 8, 2010 at 2:31 pm
We are hearing more reports about social media combining with email. This has been evolving for a decade or so, and now we have Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) reportedly trying to either catch up or take this one step further. There have been many rumors about more and more social-features coming, so this may just be nothing more than a finalization of news under development. A report first from the Wall Street Journal, with Gmail unveiling a new feature that makes it easier and faster for users to communicate and share data or content with their approved contacts. Where this gets interesting is that this is the exact sort of issue that News Corp. (NASDAQ: NWS) and the New York Times Company (NYSE: NYT) may want to squash.
Read Full Story »
Posted: February 8, 2010 at 10:18 am
For the first time, China Investment Corp., the country’s sovereign wealth fund, has filed a Form 13F with the US Securities and Exchange Commission listing details of its investments in companies traded on US exchanges. With a couple of exceptions, the investments are small and pose no immediate threat of an attempted takeover. Read Full Story »
Posted: February 8, 2010 at 9:30 am
Things just still are not going well at SAP AG (NYSE: SAP). Its CEO Leo Apotheker has stepped down as the company reached an agreement with him not to renew his contract. The problem is that this departure was only after about 7 months, and it comes at a time when most technology giants are talking up a return of enterprise spending. As a result of today’s management action, the company is going back to a co-CEO structure.
Read Full Story »
Posted: February 8, 2010 at 8:48 am
Updated throughout the day
Updated 8.47 AM EST Yelp rejected a $700 million bid from Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT). (BusinessWeek)
Toyota (NYSE:TM) is preparing Prius recalls in the US and Europe (Reuters)
Disney (NYSE:DIS) and Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) will buy China’s largest in-bus advertising firm. (Reuters).
Lionsgate may buy Miramax from Disney (NYSE:DIS) (NYPost).
China Huaneng Group, China’s largest wind power company may go public. Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) and Goldman Sachs will help underwrite the deal (Bloomberg)
The US will not re-negotiate a deal with UBS under which the Swiss bank gave US regulators the names of clients who may have dodged federal taxes (Reuters)
JAL will keep its partnership with AMR (NYSE:AMR) and reject a competing offer from Delta (NYSE:DAL) (The Asahi Shimbun)
Douglas A. McIntyre
Posted: February 8, 2010 at 8:26 am
Over what we saw during the recession, 2009 was the year that dividends were cut down to effect cash conservation to get through the recession. In fact, the dividend cuts may have saved many more thousands of jobs at large companies had the cash not been conserved. But we are seeing a return of the dividend in many large companies so far in the first six weeks of 2010. We wanted to look at other large and widely held stocks and make some dividend growth predictions of our own.
Among the companies we have pegged for large dividend growth in 2010 are Dr. Pepper Snapple Group, Inc. (NYSE: DPS) in food and beverages, J.P.Morgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM) in financials, General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE) in conglomerates, Altria Group Inc. (NYSE: MO) in tobacco, Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ) and AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) in telecom, Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO) in tech, The Dow Chemical Company (NYSE: DOW) in industrials, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) in retail, and Kimberly-Clark Corporation (NYSE: KMB) in consumer products.
In each case we have shown what the earnings expectations are from Thomson Reuters in 2010 or 2011 and shown the current dividend for the dividend coverage. We have also given some added color on what is behind the cut and then the return. Lastly, we looked at peers to make simple determinations of how high of these payouts could rise in 2010.
Read Full Story »
Read more:
Dividend,
Shareholder Issues,
Value Investing,
CSCO,
DOW,
DPS,
GE,
JPM,
KMB,
MO,
T,
VZ,
WMT
Posted: February 8, 2010 at 8:20 am
John Tamny of Forbes
Washington, D.C., experienced its latest snowstorm the weekend before last. Though the 8 inches that fell didn’t constitute a record, the heavy snow managed to complicate getting around the city. Cabs were impossible to find.
The snowfall and its externalities offered a basic economic lesson about price controls and the scarcity that always results when governments, as opposed to free markets, set the cost of goods. Indeed, thanks to price curbs imposed on cabdrivers without regard to the weather outside, the routine activity of getting from Point A to Point B was rendered nearly impossible.
Read more….
Posted: February 8, 2010 at 8:13 am
These are this Monday’s top analyst upgrades, downgrades, and initiations seen in Wall Street research calls:
Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) Raised to Buy at Collins Stewart.
AirGas Inc. (NYSE: ARG) Cut to Neutral at Baird; Cut to Hold at KeyBanc.
Broadcom Corp. (NASDAQ: BRCM) Started as Buy at Citigroup.
CME Group (NYSE: CME) Raised to Buy at Jefferies.
Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE: XOM) Raised to Buy at Collins Stewart.
Home Depot (NYSE: HD) Raised to Overweight at Morgan Stanley.
Newell Rubbermaid (NYSE: NWL) Raised to Overweight at Morgan Stanley.
Petrohawk Energy Corporation (NYSE: HK) Cut to Market Perform at Bernstein.
Pricline.com Inc. (NASDAQ: PCLN) Raised to Positive at Susquehanna.
Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS) Raised to Neutral at JPMorgan.
You are invited to join our free daily email distribution list to hear about top analyst upgrades and downgrades, IPOs and secondary offerings, ongoing day trader and options trader alerts, stock and market rumors, Buffett and guru investor news, M&A and more.
JON C. OGG
FEBRUARY 8, 2010
Read more:
Analyst Calls,
AMZN,
ARG,
BRCM,
CME,
DIS,
HD,
HK,
NWL,
PCLN,
XOM
Posted: February 8, 2010 at 7:48 am
Another example of the Chinese government’s unreliable public relations is its claim to have shut down one of the largest hacker operations in the country–in November. The announcement was made today, at least two months after the action took place.
The Wall Street Journal reports ”the business, known as Black Hawk Safety Net, operated through the now-shuttered Web site www.3800cc.com and generated around $1 million in income from its over 12,000 subscribers.” Read Full Story »
Posted: February 8, 2010 at 6:00 am
Alan Greenspan, 84 years old, and still defending his role as chairman of the Fed from 1987 to 2006, made a case for his relevance once again.
Greenspan told ”Meet The Press” that “if stock prices start continuing down, I would get very concerned.” Greenspan believes equities are a reasonable proxy for the market’s view of the near-term future of the economy. He added his impression that the recovery “is going to be a slow, trudging thing.” Read Full Story »
RSS Updates
Email Updates
