Daily Archives: February 9, 2007

The mini-Week of Cramer

Here is a mini-week of Cramer is here so you can see some of his top notes from the week, but there will be a full list of Cramer comments from this week posted early Saturday for you review.  The full list has many links inside it that can give you access to what is essentially a full list of his key picks this week.

Cramer also had a weekly SELL BLOCK where he featured many past picks, but not all are outright sell calls.  He noted Avon (AVP), Wells Fargo (WFC), Washington Mutual (WM), Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF), Circuit City (CC), Sears (SHLD).

Cramer panned Crocs (CROX) on a long-term basis but said you can actually still make money off it in the near-term.  Under Armour (UA) was the one that Cramer thinks could end up being the next Nike.

Cramer panned ETF’s. 

He said you can buy Avnet (AVT) as a new tech exception, although it is interesting that it is a distributore more than a producer.

Have a great weekend.

Jon C. Ogg
February 9, 2007

Posted on: February 9, 2007 – 7:00 pm in Cramer

Cramer’s GAMEPLAN For Next Week

Cramer said he doesn’t like the market as real estate looks crummy, financials are dropping, gold safety is being discussed, options expiration is next week and he thinks that you could see a lot of prevailing winds acting against a bullish bias.  If it is a selling week the good companies with quarterly reports will still get hit. He thinks things will get worse in the market before they get better.  He does have several names he has a gameplan for next week:

After Prudential (PRU) did so well and AON (AON) did too, he thinks Met Life (MET) is even better and will do well.  You can buy 1/2 Before the earnings and buy 1/2 after earnings.

Chipotle (CMG) and Denny’s (DENN) both report; but because Cramer is nervous ahead of the week he thinks you buy after earnings to avoid event risk.  On Lifetime Fitness (LTM) he likes it.  On Baidu.com (BIDU) Cramer thinks you should be patient, be careful because it is wild after earnings.  KB Home (KBH) is one the you can buy after the profit taking after earnings.  Daktronics (DAKT) already sold off 8% so he wants to be in ahead of the quarter.

In a call-in he also said he still likes Level 3 Communications (LVLT).  That is his second time to call it this week; and this was his #1 speculative pick for 2007.

Jon C. Ogg
February 9, 2007

Posted on: February 9, 2007 – 6:52 pm in Cramer

Cramer’s Speculative Telecom Basket

On MAD MONEY on CNBC, Cramer came up with a speculative basket for telecom.  Part of this is brought on by Cisco (CSCO), and CSCO is one you can own. There are some little telcos that are unreliable but some can offer huge gains if you catch them right.  MRV Communications (MRVC) has run up 16% since he recommended it last month.  He has 3 picks off CSCO and one isn’t yet public.  Optium (OPTM) is one he likes with 30% of revenues from Cisco; Finisar (FNSR) is another Cramer likes and it has 22% of revenues from Cisco.  Opnext (OPXT) gets 40% of revenues from Cisco and they come public next week, but it has not seen its IPO yet.  Cramer said these are crummy stocks you can make money in, but they’ll fizzle out eventually.

Jon C. Ogg
February 9, 2007

Posted on: February 9, 2007 – 6:22 pm in Cramer

Cramer Speculates on Landec

Cramer on CNBC’s MAD MONEY this evening wanted to discuss speculation to keep people from being able to pull the trigger until Monday.  Landec (LNDC) is a small $12 stock with a $300M market cap that he wanted to review.  It is a seed company and seed technology company for the agriculture industry.  This company even has seeds that allows farmers to plant seeds early that resist water if the temperature is too cold, and these can be used to more easily grow corn.  It also has a packaging operation that increases shelf life by regulating oxygen to extend shelf life.  If the current trends fall apart then will be a dud, but he doesn’t see how it can happen.  It is also cheap to growth rates according to Cramer.  LNDC rose over 5% to $13.00 in after-hours trading, a new year high.

Jon C. Ogg
February 9, 2007

Posted on: February 9, 2007 – 6:09 pm in Cramer

Is Fortress REALLY the Only Public Hedge Fund or Alternative Investment Vehicle?

Stock Tickers: FIG, SHLD, AINV, ALD, ACAS, EQS, GS, C, MS

So you thought that Fortress (FIG-NYSE) was really the only hedge fund to be public.  It may be the first out of the true ‘hedge funds’ that take a percentage of performance, but they are just one more in the field of alternative investment companies that are now public.  Last night Cramer referred to Eddie Lampert and Sears Holdings (SHLD-NASDAQ) as being a hedge fund also.  KKR already went public in Europe, or at least part of it did.

On top of this, there are many closed-end and private equity and investment vehicles out there that are actually competitors to hedge funds.  The reason that these are competitors is because they often compete for the same sort of investment monies depending on where the business cycle is and they sometimes work in conjunction with each other or find themselves on opposite sides of the table as competitors.

American Capital Strategies (ACAS-NASDAQ) is one such company.  The company has offices in many cities and participates in private equity investing, mezzanine financing, employee buyouts, recapitalizations, and many other special situation investments. It has a market cap of $6.8 Billion and it has a very large dividend yield north of 7%.

Allied Capital Corp (ALD-NYSE) is another.  It participates in buyouts, acquisitions, recapitalizations, note purchases, growth capital, middle market investments, debt financing and the like.  ALD has a $4.2 Billion market cap, under an 8 P/E ratio, and north of an 8% dividend yield.

Apollo Investment Corp (AINV-NASDAQ) is also in the field.  It offers mezzanine and secured borrowings, second lien debt, subordinated debt, debt preferred or convertible, equity common equity, co-investments.  It has a $1.9 Billion market cap and has been paying out an 8% dividend yield.

What is interesting about these is that all of these trade with P/E ratios of under 10.0 and they have high dividends.  What you need to know is that there is a reason.  Very few in the public know these companies, they are all multi-headed and multi-department operators that have their hands in many aspects of private equity, management buyouts, venture capital, and lending & investing.  They all tend to have income that is ‘volatile’ and their dividends are often ‘juiced’ because of capital gains or because of one-time sales. Operating results are also highly dependent on many factors in many industries that are often not in their control.

One much smaller company in the field is one called Equus (EQS-NYSE).  It has a microcap value with what is only a $71 million market cap.  They paid out a huge dividend last year that skews the entire balance sheet so trying to shine a light on P/E ratios and dividend yields is even less comparable.  Equus invests in some public securities historically but they mainly prefer to invest in private companies for longer-term capital gains.

If you think these are grossly different then read how Fortress describes itself and compare to the descriptions above: Fortress is a leading global alternative asset manager with over $30 billion in assets under management as of December 31, 2006. Fortress raises, invests and manages private equity funds, hedge funds and publicly traded alternative investment vehicles. Fortress was founded in 1998.

So as you can see, there are other ‘alternative investment’ vehicles out there that already trade as US public companies, and this list is actually only the more established older gaurd names.  There are many such investment and holding vehicles that have been public for some time.  They also tend to have sporadic and mixed results, and you better look into what each company does and who they invest in before you start thinking you can just catch a long-term fad and think you have a great shot at clipping some fairly high dividend yields in what may be artificially low P/E ratio stocks. If only it was that easy.

Now that Goldman Sachs (GS) and others have been so active in private equity and hedge funds, how do you rank them since they are no longer just an investment bank? What about Citigroup (C) or Morgan Stanley (MS)?  There are also about 20 to 50 other smaller companies that could be counted in this list, and with the success of the FIG IPO seen today you can imagine that this won’t be the last.

Jon C. Ogg
February 9, 2007

Posted on: February 9, 2007 – 3:52 pm in Banking, Brokerage Firms, Cramer, Financial Stocks, IPOs

Cramer Opposes the Semiconductor Upgrade; Likes Agriculture

On today’s STOP TRADING segment on CNBC, Cramer was discussing a segment Cramer was discussing the semiconductor upgrades and that brief interest in tech is over again.  He said BRCM was looking a little better and he could make the case for it as a buy if he wanted to, but most chip names aren’t and investors should wait and he doesn’t trust the group. 

Chesapeake (CHK) is one thatCramer isn’t very positive on and the company is financed.
he still likes Schlumberger (SLB) and Chevron (CVX).  AGCO (AG) is one that Cramer said may be the worst and it is down today but the agricultural sector is rising and he’d buy it just because of the sector.  He thinks agriculture is oil.

Jon C. Ogg
Fenruary 9, 2007

Posted on: February 9, 2007 – 2:48 pm in Cramer

Why I Don’t Think the Fortress IPO Signals a Top in Hedge Funds

By Chad Brand of The Peridot Capitalist

Many people will likely point to today’s IPO of Fortress Investment Group (FIG) as evidence that we are nearing a top in the hedge fund and private equity bull market. While I have no opinion on the investment merits of the stock (it is up 73% on its first trading day, and I have not looked at their financials), I do not think that this IPO alone is worrisome for the markets.

While the growth in new hedge funds and private equity funds will likely slow in coming years, both are here to stay given that they are truly viable investment vehicles. Just because these types of funds are newer than investment banks, mutual fund companies, and other buy-side asset managers, it doesn’t mean they should not be publicly traded. They are able to do things such as sell short, profit from arbitrage opportunities, and take a long term view with a turnaround situation without the constant badgering from short-term oriented analysts. There is a real market for these strategies, and it is not just a fad.

However, just because they are here to stay, it doesn’t mean that hedge fund and private equity growth won’t slow. Whenever you have a huge spike in interest for something, you will ultimately have people getting involved who are in over their heads. With more hedge funds being created, there will be more failures in the future. It doesn’t mean hedge funds are bad, or just a fad, it simply means that like many other businesses, the strong survive and the weak get weeded out.

While I do think public hedge/private equity funds are here to stay, that is not to say that investors should go out and buy up as many shares as they can. Much like investment banks like Goldman Sachs (GS) and asset managers like Blackrock (BLK), these companies will fall on hard times when markets turn south. Investors will need to compare and contrast a company like Fortress to a Goldman, or a Blackrock, to determine how their financial results will fare in various market environments. Using that information will help them decide how much they are willing to pay for each of their respective stocks relative to each other.

Full Disclosure: No positions in BLK, FIG, or GS at time of writing

http://www.peridotcapitalist.com/

Posted on: February 9, 2007 – 2:02 pm in IPOs

Cramer in Favor of Sarbanes-Oxley

Today Cramer was discussing Sarbanes-Oxley on his Wall Street Confidential video on TheStreet.com.  Did I hear this right?  Cramer says Sarbanes-Oxley is doing great things.  He has actually been positive on the fairness and openness of SEC filings, information dissemination, and openness of the company books.  So this comment may not be a surprise, even if most corporate officers hate SARBOX.  Cramer said that IPO’s are now of lower quality because the pipe was emptied last year.  He sees very little that he likes out of the 10-12 in the hopper.  UA/CROX care less about SARBOX and he thinks SARBOX is doing great things.  This is a barrier the SEC should always have had. 

This appears to have been pre-recorded from before his back-to-school tour.  Cramer notes that if you can’t afford the Sabanes-Oxley fees you probably shouldn’t be public anyway.  There is a lot more and this segment wasn’t really about individual stock picks, hence the pre-recording.

Jon C. Ogg
Fenruary 9, 2007

Posted on: February 9, 2007 – 1:22 pm in Cramer

GM, UPS, X — Key Upgrades and Downgrades

From Ticker Sense

Some noteworthy upgrades and downgrades this morning:

Deutsche Bank upgraded GM, Robert Baird upgraded UPS, and CIBC and Bank of America both downgraded US Steel (X).  As shown below, Deutsche Bank is not afraid to make a recommendation on GM.  Since June 2004, they have issued 60 calls on the stock.  However, today is the first time they have rated it a Buy.

Both CIBC and Bank of America have had Buy recommendations on US Steel throughout its recent six-month price run-up.  Their downgrades come at a time when the stock is extremely overbought.

Gmdbupgrade

Upsbaird

Cibcx

Bacx

http://www.tickersense.typepad.com/

Posted on: February 9, 2007 – 10:45 am in Research

New Century: Same As The Old Century

From AAO Weblog

It’s stress-testing time in the subprime market.

On Wednesday, mortgage finance REIT New Century Financial issued a non-reliance 8-K, revoking investor reliance on all its quarterly financials issued in 2006.

The subprime market has been a concern for months now, as housing slowed down. Yesterday’s news from HSBC that they’d drastically underestimated their bad loan exposure from subprime lending only reinforced fears. And the fear is almost palpable in the stock prices of HSBC and New Century.

Good batting can cover up for bad pitching, they say. But when the bats go cold, the bad pitching makes for managers’ headaches. And that’s just what may be happening here: when the subprime market was hot and growing, things like loss reserves seemed to take care of themselves. Now that the lending-go-round has stopped and the payments aren’t coming in, the weaknesses in the accounting for loss reserves show up. And they show up ugly.

From the New Century 8-K:

“The company establishes an allowance for repurchase losses on loans sold, which is a reserve for expenses and losses that may be incurred by the company due to the potential repurchase of loans resulting from early-payment defaults by the underlying borrowers or based on alleged violations of representations and warranties in connection with the sale of these loans. When the company repurchases loans, it adds the repurchased loans to its balance sheet as mortgage loans held for sale at their estimated fair values, and reduces the repurchase reserve by the amount the repurchase prices exceed the fair values. During the second and third quarters of 2006, the company’s accounting policies incorrectly applied Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 140 – Accounting for Transfers and Servicing of Financial Assets and Extinguishment of Liabilities. Specifically, the company did not include the expected discount upon disposition of loans when estimating its allowance for loan repurchase losses. [Emphasis added.]

In addition, the company’s methodology for estimating the volume of repurchase claims to be included in the repurchase reserve calculation did not properly consider, in each of the first three quarters of 2006, the growing volume of repurchase claims outstanding that resulted from the increasing pace of repurchase requests that occurred in 2006, compounded by the increasing length of time between the whole loan sales and the receipt and processing of the repurchase request.”

Translated: the firm buys back subprime loans that it sold to securitization trusts, a la Statement 140. That keeps the securitization trust in the pink; it’ll have the cash it needs to keep the security holders happy. At the outset of securitizations, the company is supposed to set up an allowance for the expected losses it would incur when it “takes back” the unhealthy loans. Apparently, this didn’t happen. Putting such loans back on the balance sheet at fair value would cause them to reverse such an allowance, and there was nothing to reverse. It also seems that the company didn’t expect things to turn out badly quite so fast: “the company’s methodology for estimating the volume of repurchase claims to be included in the repurchase reserve calculation did not properly consider … the growing volume of repurchase claims outstanding that resulted from the increasing pace of repurchase requests that occurred in 2006.”

The mid-1990’s saw many firms hit the wall when their securitization assumptions turned out flawed. It’s almost as if nothing was learned from the past. It’s early to say that this is going to be a widespread problem, in that these errors seem to be of New Century’s own doing. And they seem pretty basic: when you have a loan, you set up a reserve for some of the bad apples. Period. It’s a basic principle of lending accounting, and it’s embedded in Statement 140, too. Which, by the way, has been around for over six years. No bye should be given for the issuance of a new and complex standard that wasn’t fully understood.

http://www.accountingobserver.com/blog/

Posted on: February 9, 2007 – 10:40 am in Accounting

Video Market Growth Eludes DIVX

Divx (DIVX) has a good quarter. Revenue was $16.7 million, up 58% from last year. But, forecasts for Q1 07 were for revenue to be as low as $17.3 million. This is at a company where revenue more than doubled from 2004 to 2005, and doubled again for the first six months of 2006 compared to the same period in 2005. (DIVX S-1)

Wall St. has to wonder what happened to the video revolution? Did the YouTube, Joost, Movielink, video iPod world leave Divx behind?

Apparently so. The stock is trading off about 5% at 10.05 AM to $22.50. The shares have a high/low since the IPO of $31.89/$18.00. Even with the shares down, the company has a huge market cap of almost $750 million. So, if the company does $80 million in revenue this year, it trades at 9.4x sales.

Pretty high for a company that may not be growing much quarter-over-previous-quarter.

Douglas A. McIntyre can be reached at douglasamcintyre@247wallst.com. He does not own securities in companies that he writes about.

Posted on: February 9, 2007 – 10:11 am in Technology Companies

IPO Filing: BGC Partners, Inc. (Cantor Fitzgerald)

BGC Partners, Inc. filed last night for an IPO of its shares to raise up to $460 million via share sales.  This will trade under the proposed ticker BGCP, and so far only Cantor Fitzgerald and Deutsche Bank were listed as underwriters.  The syndicate may grow before the IPO date, and that is not uncommon at all.

BGC is a full-service inter-dealer broker specializing in the trading of over-the-counter financial instruments and related derivative products.  It provides integrated voice and electronic execution and other brokerage services to many banks that regularly trade in capital markets, brokerage houses and investment banks for a broad range of global financial products, including fixed income securities, foreign exchange, equity derivatives, credit derivatives, futures, structured products and other instruments, as well as market data products for selected financial instruments.

This is the restructured inter-dealer operation of Cantor Fitzgerald and of course as many will know has mostly a newer workforce since losing the majority of its staff in the World Trade Center on September 11.  As of January 1, 2007, BGC had approximately 1,064 brokers across approximately 125 desks and has offices in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, London, Toronto, Hong Kong, Paris, Milan, Tokyo, Beijing, Singapore, Mexico City, Copenhagen, Melbourne and Sydney and expect to open offices in Istanbul and Seoul in 2007.

Jon C. Ogg
February 9, 2007

Posted on: February 9, 2007 – 9:36 am in Brokerage Firms, Financial Stocks, IPOs

Fortress Investment Group IPO Proves Solid Demand

If you thought hedge funds were a fad or that regulation was going to kill them, think again.  The IPO for Fortress Investment Group (FIG-NYSE) was oversubscribed and priced 34+ million shares at $18.50, which is at the high-end of its $16.50 to $18.50 range.

The underwriting group on this one was massive as it wanted to spread the shares around and insure proper coverage down the road.  Goldman Sachs and Lehman were the lead underwriters; Banc of America, Citigroup, and Deutsche Bank were co-managers; and others in the syndicate include Bear Stearns, Lazard, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, and Wells Fargo.

We have already seen private equity firms raise capital via IPO’s in Europe, so this may just be part of the ongoing evolution.  The talk is out there that the size of this deal will be large enough that it could be part of the S&P 500 Index in the future.

Jon C. Ogg
February 9, 2007

Posted on: February 9, 2007 – 9:03 am in IPOs

PhotoBucket, No.3 Video Site–IPO?

Photobucket is one of the top photo-sharing sites in the world. It currently ranks No.44 on Comscore’s Top 50 websites. According to Fortune, Photobucket is watching the IPO market.

But, the attraction of the company to the public markets may be more than as a "photo play".

According to TechCrunch, Photobucket has become the No.3 video posting site, behind YouTube (GOOG) and MySpace (NWS). The site is handling 35,000 video uploads a day even though it has only offered the function for the last nine months. And now the site is preparing to launch a technology that, according to TechCrunch, will offer a "tool to allow users to mash up videos, photos and music clips into a timeline, and add titles, transitions and other effects…"

Given the sale prices of MySpace and YouTube, an IPO could certainly put a total value on Photobucket in the $1 billion range.

Douglas A. McIntyre can be reached at douglasamcintyre@247wallst.com. He does not own securities in companies that he writes about.

Posted on: February 9, 2007 – 9:03 am in IPOs

Forward PE, the Distortion

Submitted by CrossProfit on stocks Atheros Communications Inc. (ATHR)

Many investors have noticed that the markets tend to rise more often than not during the first quarter of the calendar year. A contributing factor is the way information is disseminated.

Take Yahoo! Finance and ATHR as an example. The current quarter ends in March 2007. Trailing twelve months PE conventional refers to the last reported period, going back 12 months. This is the earnings for 2006. Forward PE conventionally refers to the following 12 months. This is the earnings for 2007.

Many computer programs have a ‘bug’ in them. Essentially because we are now in 2007, the programs erroneously take 2008 as the following 12 months. For some reason once the first quarter of 2007 is reported the programs correct themselves and calculate forward PE on a quarterly basis meaning Q2 2007 through Q1 2008.

Now take a look at the Yahoo! Finance figures here and here.

http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=athr

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ae?s=ATHR

You will notice the following;

1) Current year average estimates (2007) are at 0.96. This is what ‘Forward PE’ should be calculated on.

2) Next year EPS is 1.16. 2008 is not a true basis for forward PE as 24 months out is inherently unreliable.

3) Under the “Delayed quote data” heading you have ttm EPS listed as 0.34 and a ttm PE of 75.95. On the second page under the “Earnings History” you have an “EPS Actual” figure that adds up to 0.72 for the trailing twelve months. The latter is incorrect.

4) Yahoo! Finance lists the Forward P/E (1yr) as 22.33! This is incorrect. As mentioned above, the computer program has taken the closing price of 25.90 and divided by the 2008 figure of 1.16 resulting in 22.33. The correct calculation should be; 25.90 divided by 0.96 = 26.98.

5) We have pointed out in the past (see all comments here and here) that our colleagues constantly forget to reduce charges from ATHR EPS figures. Our 2007 estimates are for 1.02 less 0.22 for option charges, resulting in net GAAP earnings of 0.80 per share for 2007. Since we hit the nail on the head for 2006 estimates we suggest using the following formula; 25.90 divided by 0.80 = 32.38. Using our colleagues’ figures and deducting charges, estimated earnings are less resulting in even higher forward PE.

http://networking.seekingalpha.com/article/25516

http://chip.seekingalpha.com/article/19054

Conclusion

Be careful and do your own calculations for forward PE during the first quarter of every calendar year. There is a major difference between a forward PE of 22 and 32.

In the example given above, at 22 the stock looks cheap. At 32 ATHR is expensive. ATHR should be trading at a forward PE range of 26 to 30, depending on how bullish you are. We are very bullish on this stock, but use the correct figures in our calculations.

Posted on: February 9, 2007 – 8:48 am in Earnings

VeriChip IPO Braces for Lower IPO Terms

VeriChip Corporation (CHIP-NASDAQ) has lowered its proposed IPO terms, so the cult following in this stock may be feeling like it is a Doomsday cult.  This is the spin-off out of Applied Digital (ADSX-NASDAQ) that develops and sells RFID-radio frequency identification systems, primarily for use in the healthcare industry.

The deal is set to price later this morning but now it plans to sell 3.1 million shares, down from 4.3 million originally indicated; and the pricing is looking to be $6.50, which is at the lower-end of its proposed $6.50 to $8.50 range.

The lead underwriter is Merriman Curhan Ford, and CE Unterberg Towbin and Kaufman Bros. are the co-managers.

ADSX is down 1% pre-market but has been down as much as 4% pre-market.  Digital Angel (DOC-AMEX) is the other backdoor play in this one.  Unfortunately it appears that people are going out of the backdoor instead of sneaking in that way.

Jon C. Ogg
February 9, 2007

Posted on: February 9, 2007 – 8:45 am in IPOs

Pre-Market Stock Notes (FEB 9, 2007)

(AAPL) Apple is down 0.5% on reports that Steve Jobs was involved in options backdating to a former director at the old Pixar.
(AES) AES reached a pact to sell its power assets in Venezuela back to Chavez regime for $740 million.
(ALU) Alcatel-Lucent job cuts will be 12,500 instead of the 20,000 that had been estimated.
(ANSV) Anesiva pesents data on pain drug, 4975, demonstrating pain reduction for up to two weeks after knee replacement surgeries
(BA) Boeing may win a $600 million Chinook helicopter pact in India.
(BMC) BMC Software $0.41 EPS vs $0.39e.
(BRCM) Broadcom traded up 1% after meeting estimates and $1 Billion share buyback.
(CDWC) CDW said January sales were up 11.9%.
(CSCO) Cisco announces agreement to acquire Five Across for undisclosed terms.
(CWTR) Coldwater Creek trading down 7% after guidance.
(DHT) Double Hull Tankers $0.30 EPS vs $0.31e.
(ENER) Energy Conversion Devices fell more than 10% after saying they will not meet the profitability forecast for 2007.
(FIG) Fortress Investment Group priced 34.286M shares at $18.50, at the top of the range for the IPO.
(FTEK) Fuel-Tech announces it was awarded multi-year Fuel-Chem order.
(HAS) Hasbro $0.74 EPS vs 0.67e.
(LI) Laidlaw International is being acquired by FirstGroup for $35.25, or about $3.6 Billion.
(MA) Mastercard indicated up 3% after beating earnings and raising its dividend.
(MDT) Medtronic begins new study of a pacemaker that is safe to use with MRI machines.
(PGL) Peoples Energy $0.82 EPS vs $0.80e.
(PNRA) Panera $0.62 EPS vs $0.63e; sees next quarter $0.47-0.50 vs $0.53e.
(PRTS) US Auto Parts priced its IPO of 10M shares at $10.00 per share.
(SDXC) Switch & Data IPO priced 11.7M shares at $17.00, above the IPO range.
(SFLY) Shutterfly traded up 15% after beating earnings.
(SIMG) Silicon Image down almost 15% after earnings.
(SIRF) SiRF Technology announces it files complaint in the ITC against Global Locate.
(SFUN) Saifun Semi announced 1.5M share buyback.
(TRMB) Trimble is using $5.00 cash and $2.50 in stock as part of the @Road consideration previously announced.
(WLDN) Willdan CEO is retiring.
(WOLF) Great Wolf Resorts raised guidance.
(ZQK) Quicksilver guided results lower.

Jon C. Ogg

Posted on: February 9, 2007 – 8:31 am in Pre-Market Activity

Recap of Cramer’s SELL BLOCK

On tonight’s MAD MONEY on CNBC, Cramerhad his SELL BLOCK  calls.  This is where he reviews names that canusually be sold that are based on his recent picks.

Avon (AVP-NYSE) is one that Cramer thinks that Andrea Jung is nolonger a CEO that has to go.  That wasn’t one of MY list of CEO’s thatneed to go because I didn’t agree with it.  Cramer said he wasn’tpatient enough and he was wrong.

Wells Fargo (WFC) is one you need to sell.  It is trading too highon a multiple and he thinks you can sell at least some.  He also thinksWashington Mutual (WM) can be sold here.  You should use this to buyGoldman Sachs (GS).

On Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF) that is 50% from the summer and hethinks if you haven’t sold some yet you should.  Take your profitsaccording to Cramer.

Cramer also said Sell Cicuit City (CC-NYSE) if you haven’t.

Citigroup’s (C-NYSE) Chuck Prince should be on the CEO’s that need to go list.  He is one of my own picks to go and I even said he hasn’t shown up for his own funeral yet on my CNBC interview on Monday.

Cramer also believes that Sears Holdings (SHLD) is the real beneficiary of the Fortress Investment Group (FIG) IPO today since there will now be a yardstick.

DST Systems (DST) was noted as a potential buyout candidate on MAD MONEY last night.

Jon C. Ogg
February 8, 2007

Posted on: February 9, 2007 – 8:26 am in Cramer

Pre-Market Analyst Calls (FEB 9, 2007)

AET raised to Hold at Citigroup.
APLX raised to Buy at First Albany.
ARM raised to Neutral at Goldman Sachs.
BG raised to Neutral at HSBC.
BLC cut to Hold at Deutsche Bank.
CAT started as Neutral at Goldman Sachs.
CONN raised to Buy at Soleil.
DCP raised to Outperform at Bear Stearns.
DE started as Buy at Goldman Sachs.
ELY cut to Hold at AGEdwards.
ENER cut to Sector Perform at CIBC.
EQ cut to Hold at Deutsche Bank.
F raised to Buy from Hold at Deutsche Bank.
FWRD cut to Underperform at Bear Stearns.
GM raised to Buy from Hold at Deutsche Bank.
IR started as Neutral at Goldman Sachs.
ITY cut to Neutral at Credit Suisse.
JOYG started as Sell at Goldman Sachs.
KMT started as Neutral at Goldman Sachs.
LPSN raised to Strong Buy from buy at First Albany.
MMS raised to Buy at Jefferies.
NYX cut to Neutral at Goldman Sachs.
PENN cut to Hold at Jefferies.
PX raised to Buy at Jefferies.
Q raised to Hold at Stifel Nicolaus.
QCOM raised to Outperform at Bear Stearns.
SIMG downgraded at Thomas Weisel, Jefferies, and CIBC.
SLAB raised to Outperform at Piper Jaffray.
SPRT cut to Hold at Deutsche Bank.
TDS cut to Neutral at Baird.
TEX started as Neutral at Goldman Sachs.
X cut to Neutral at B of A and cut to Sector Perform at CIBC.
UPS raised to Outperform at Baird.

by Jon C. Ogg

Posted on: February 9, 2007 – 8:20 am in Analyst Calls

$70 Oil: A Spill Or A Skirmish Away

When oil was at $72, it had been driven up by low gas supplies and tension between the US and Iran over nuclear weapons. At about the same time, oil analyst Charles Maxwell told CNBC that oil would go to $105. His reasoning?  "These terrible things like Iran, Nigeria, Venezuela are now happening on the geopolitical front with such frequency that they are becoming a permanent condition. We are caught in an energy crisis which may be 50 percent fear, but real nonetheless."

Oil is back at $60. It crept up on fears of tightening supplies from OPEC and a winter that eventually did get cold in the US. And, OPEC plans to cut production another 500,000 barrels a day.

It would not take much to push oil back toward $70. The BP Alaska pipeline and tensions in the Middle East have shown that. And, for the time being, the Middle East appears to be getting more tense. A tanker could run aground any day. The temperatures across the northern tier of the US could stay in the 20s. Or, all three could happen at once.

Much of the recent recovery in the airline industry has been based on lower fuel costs. And, sales of SUVs and pick-ups might have been even worse over the last few months if gas prices had not been down.

What goes around often comes around.

Douglas A. McIntyre can be reached at douglasamcintyre@247wallst.com. He does not own securities in companies that he writes about.

Posted on: February 9, 2007 – 6:47 am in Oil & Gas