Daily Archives: April 17, 2007

Cramer on the Superior Offshore IPO

Cramer probably just wrecked an IPO called Superior Offshore (Proposed Ticker is DEEP-NASDAQ) as a sleeper IPO that he thinks is mispriced that will come to market at the end of this week.  He says that even at $15 to $16 he thinks you can pay up to $20 per share for it.  This one is a play on diving and subsea and he thinks it is one to watch (and one to play).  This company is expanding into "deep water" drilling, and he’s even willing to take the fact that they are exposed to Gulf of Mexico drilling. 

This is a bit irritating if you think about it.  He said this one is being mispriced to the downside, but him touting this ahead of time may have taken care of that discounting.  So if you were playing this one or if you were trying to get shares, he just made it more expensive ahead of time.  Oh well, that happens.

Jon C. Ogg
April 17, 2007

Jon Ogg can be reached at jonogg@247wallst.com; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.

Posted on: April 17, 2007 – 5:54 pm in Cramer, IPOs, Oil & Gas

Cramer’s Alternative Energy Picks

Stock Tickers: FSLR, WFR, PBW, PUW, PZD

Tonight, Cramer continued his "going green" segment after changing his stance on alternative energy stocks last night.   

One he really likes is First Solar (FSLR-NASDAQ) and he’s been behind it since March and it’s up 30% then; but he’d rather look for a pullback.  That one can compete head to head with normal power in the fairly near future.  MEMC Electronics (WFR-NYSE) is the other one he likes because they make the silicon wafers for solar panels.  This one is up 200% since Q3 2006 and he has been positive on this one all the way up.  He likes it because there is a silicon shortage in an environment that the demand exceeds supply, and they are the one to benefit from it.  Cramer did say that these names are all up big, so what you really want to do is look for these on pullbacks when they get cheaper. 

There is a much safer way to this, and you won’t be risking it all in a single leveraged name that would increase your risks.  A few names I have looked at for exposure to "Alt-En" and that I feel better about are actually what I call the "Alt-En" ETF’s, and these may offer you a safer mix of companies since some of the holdings are actually diversified and have many different operations.  The PowerShares WilderHill Clean Energy ETF (PBW-AMEX), PowerShares Cleantech ETF (PZD-AMEX), PowerShares WilderHill Progressive Energy Portfolio (PUW-AMEX) will all give some alternative energy sector exposure that won’t as easily rip apart your wallet if you make the wrong pick.  ETF’s are not going to give you the biggest bang for your buck when researching alternative energy pure-plays, but if you have been around the block for a long time you’ll already know how painful some of those stocks can be when you are wrong or when that sector runs into trouble.

Jon C. Ogg
April 17, 2007

Jon Ogg can be reached at jonogg@247wallst.com; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.

Posted on: April 17, 2007 – 5:38 pm in Uncategorized

Cramer: Gannett Should Acquire Monster Worldwide (MNST)

Tonight on CNBC’s Mad Money, Cramer’s first message was for Gannett (GCI-NYSE): he said that they should go out and acquire Monster Worldwide (MNST-NASDAQ) to save the company.  It is in the perfect position to be bought by Gannett, and if not Cramer thinks that Yahoo! (YHOO-NASDAQ) could go out and acquire it.  He said it’s a double takeove candidate.  As a newspaper company, Gannett is locked into a long slow death march, and Gannett is the largest holder in CareerBuilder.com and Monster fell sharply after its shortfall.  This would let Gannett become the hands down #1 online job search company.  There is also a new CEO that actually orchestrates buyouts of the companies he joins.  Monster also made it on Goldman Sach’s list of best candidates for "private equity targets."  He thinks that the mid-$40’s right now would be worth multiples more if this one got bought at old multiples, but you might not want to spend too much time thinking about that. Tribune (TRB-NYSE) and McClatchy (MNI-NYSE) are the other owners of the competing CareerBuilder.com.

Monster traded down 0.95% to $43.96 in normal trading, but shares are now up close to 2.5% at $45.00 since Cramer noted this is a takeover candidate.  This one lost 11% when it warned on April 4, 2007.

Jon C. Ogg
April 17, 2007

Jon Ogg can be reached at jonogg@247wallst.com; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.

Posted on: April 17, 2007 – 5:18 pm in Cramer, Internet, Mergers and Buy Outs, Old Media

Vonage Files Its Annual Report; Risks, Legal Proceedings, & All

If you look through the Vonage Holdings’ (VG-NYSE) annual report just filed with the SEC, you might end up asking yourself if the company is just an accounts payable entity that funds lawyers and trials rather than the company being a VoIP telephony provider.  The "RISKS" section of this 10-K filing goes on and on, but that is actually typical of many companies.  That section also spells out some of the judgements and royalties it may have to pay.  The "LEGAL PROCEEDINGS" section of the document does at least show the "actual" issues the company is involved in, and it is substantial.

The good news is that at least the company did get its 10-K filing in at the SEC, and the stock actually looks up almost 1% in after-hours.  It is actually fairly odd that the shares closed up less than 1% today when you consider the "talk of a sale" news last night had the shares up over 10%.  Perhaps the market was even more skeptical than we were about the probability that the company would be able to get shareholders to go along with it.

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Posted on: April 17, 2007 – 4:55 pm in Annual Report

Full Earnings Previews (Weds, APR 18, 2007)

Abbott Laboratories             (ABT) $0.61
Allstate                                   (ALL) $1.89
ASLM Holdings N.V.          (ASML) $0.41
Bank of New York                 (BK) $0.57
BankUnited                         (BKUNA) $0.68
CIT Group                              (CIT) $1.27
City National                         (CYN) $1.16
Commerce Bancorp           (CBH) $0.39
E*TRade                               (ETFC) $0.38
eBay                                       (EBAY) $0.28
First Horizon National         (FHN) $0.61
Gilead Sciences                  (GILD) $0.80
Illinois Tool Works               (ITW) $0.71
IMS Health                             (RX) $0.34
Intersil                                    (ISIL) $0.24
JPMorgan Chase                 (JPM) $1.02
Knight Transportation         (KNX) $0.19
Kraft Foods                           (KFT) $0.41.
Logitech                               (LOGI) $0.30
Motorola                                (MOT) $0.05
Novellus                                (NVLS) $0.44
Owens & Minor                    (OMI) $0.29
Piper Jaffray                          (PJC) $0.79
PNC Financial                      (PNC) $1.31
Popular Inc.                          (BPOP) $0.34
Sovereign Bancorp             (SOV) $0.32
Spansion                             (SPSN) -$0.24
Stryker                                    (SYK) $0.58
SurModics                             (SRDX) $0.33
Teradyne                                (TER) $0.03
United Tech                           (UTX) $0.81
Valley National Bancorp      (VLY) $0.31
Wolverine World Wide        (WWW) $0.37

***All estimates supplied by Zacks.

Posted on: April 17, 2007 – 4:45 pm in Earnings

Yahoo! Dribbles Earnings

Yahoo! (YHOO) reported earnings:  Net income $0.10 EPS, but $0.17 non-GAAP & $1.18 Billion versus expectations of $0.11 EPS & R$1.21 Billion.  Guidance: next quarter revenues $1.2 to $1.3 Billion versus R$1.28 Billion estimates; Fiscal 2007 $4.95 Billion to $5.45 Billion versus $5.32 Billion.

Cash, cash equivalents and investments in marketable debt securities were $3,128 million at March 31, 2007 as compared to $3,537 million at December 31, 2006, a decrease of $409 million.

YHOO shares closed up 1.5% at $32.09 in normal trading, but shares are now down 6% around that $30.00 mark on the initial guidance reaction to Panama not adding significantly, even though the company warned not to expect an instant changes previously.  Those March comScore numbers may have been one of the better tells out there.

Jon C. Ogg
April 17, 2007

Jon Ogg can be reached at jonogg@247wallst.com; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.

Posted on: April 17, 2007 – 3:41 pm in Earnings

Intel Spells Relief

Intel’s (INTC) rose 1.4% during today’s session just ahead of earnings. The stock closed at $20.98.

The large chip company’s revenue fell 1% in the latest quarter to $8.9 billion. Net income was up 19% compared to the same quarter a year ago, hitting $1.6 billion. EPS rose 17% to $.27

Analysts are looking for earnings of 22 cents per share from and revenue of $9 billion, according to a Thomson Financial poll. The company has forecast $8.7 billion to $9.3 billion in first-quarter revenue.

Intel guided for the revenue in the current quarter to be between $8.2 and $8.8 billion. Gross margins should drop slightly to 48%.

While Q2 guidance seemed very soft, the fact that the margins at the business are not collapsing because of the company’s fight for market share with AMD (AMD) must have been some comfort. Intel shares were up almost 1% at 4.21 PM in after hours trading.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Posted on: April 17, 2007 – 3:23 pm in Semiconductor

IBM Earnings: Ends With $115 Billion in Services Backlog

IBM (IBM-NYSE) earnings: $1.21 EPS & $22 Billion in Revenues versus estimates of $1.21 & $21.8 Billion. The company’s total gross profit margin was 40.2% in the 2007 first quarter compared with 39.1% in 2006.

Americas revenues only grew 1%; EMEA revenues up 13%, 5% adjusted for currency; OEM revenues fell 5%. Global services grew 8%, 4% adjusted for currency; Global Business Services increased 9%, or 6% adjusted for currency; Global Technology Services increased 7%, 4% adjusted for currency.

IBM signed $11.1 Billion in services contracts, down 2% year over year. It ended with total services backlog including Strategic Outsourcing, Business Transformation Outsourcing, Global Business Services, Integrated Technology Services and Maintenance, of $115 Billion.

Revenues from the Systems and Technology (S&T) segment totaled $4.5 billion for the quarter; Revenues from the Software segment were $4.3 billion, an increase of 9 percent; Global Financing segment revenues increased 6 percent in the first quarter to $614 million.

IBM’s effective tax rate in the first-quarter 2007 was 28.5 percent compared with 30.0 percent in the first quarter of 2006.  Shares repurchased totaled approximately $3.5 billion in the first quarter. Debt, including Global Financing, totaled $23.9 billion, compared with $22.7 billion at year-end 2006.

IBM shares are up 1.5% to $98.60 in after-hours, and that is after closing up almost 1% at $97.12.  Its 52-week trading range is $72.73 to $100.90.

Jon C. Ogg
April 17, 2007

Jon Ogg can be reached at jonogg@247wallst.com; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.

Posted on: April 17, 2007 – 3:19 pm in Earnings

Yahoo! Big Slip In Search Share

March figures from comScore show that Yahoo! (YHOO) lost a fair amount of market share in the US during March.

Its share of searches dropped .6% to to 27.5% from 28.1% in February.

Google’s (GOOG) share rose from from 48.1% to 48.3%. Microsoft (MSFT) rose from 10.5% to 10.9%. Ask.com rose from 5.0% to 5.2% and Time Warner’s (TWX) AOL rose from 4.9% to 5.0%.

Americans conducted 7.3 billion searches in March.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Posted on: April 17, 2007 – 2:49 pm in Internet

Google Announces Everything

In the last few minutes, the CEO of Google (GOOG) has made a bucket full of announcements.

The most important may be that the company has released its "anti-piracy" software. The company claims that this makes Viacom’s (VIA) suit over intellectual property infringement "irrelevant".

Google will also release free presentation software, another bullet aimed at Microsoft (MSFT) Powerpoint.

And, Google claims that antitrust concerns about its purchase of DoubleClick are "wrong" and "false".

Douglas A. McIntyre

Posted on: April 17, 2007 – 2:41 pm in Internet

Top Financial Sites From HitWise

HitWise must use a sample entirely different from the ones employed by comScore and NetRatings. For the week ending April 14, 2007, the online website measurement service showed Yahoo! Finance with a huge lead over its rivals.

Hitwise rates the financial sites by marketshare and not unique visitors.

Yahoo! Finance           29% share

IRS                            16.2% share

MSN Money               11% share

CNN Money                 3.8% share

MarketWatch               3.4% share

Reuters                       2.2% share

Motley Fool                 1.7% share

Bankrate                     1.6% share

AOL Money                 1.4% share

Forbes.com                 1.4% share

CNBC                         1.4% share

Bloomberg                    1.3% share

WSJ.com                    1.1% share

Source: Hitwise

Douglas A. McIntrye

Posted on: April 17, 2007 – 2:23 pm in Internet

Cramer Notes Medical Stocks That Bottomed

On today’s STOP TRADING segment on CNBC, Jim Cramer came out discussing ICD’s in the medical device sector. Cramer said that St. Jude Medical (STJ-NYSE) would be an ideal buyout candidate if you believed the bad news was all priced in.  Cramer said it isn’t even impossible that a drug company could do it.  Cramer said he’d own options and common stock on this.  Cramer even said Amgen (AMGN-NASDAQ) and Boston Scientific (BSX-NYSE) have both bottomed out now that the negative news and negative stories are priced in and not continuing to hurt.

On Costco (COST-NASDAQ), Cramer said he still loves Jim Sinegal as the best CEO in the sector and he applauds the Piper Jaffray upgrade.  On Sears that was also noted in the call, Cramer said he likes it still and the Black & Decker (BDK-NYSE) raised guidance will help there.

Cramer still maintains that the housing stocks should all still be sold.  More housing starts is actually bad for them according to Cramer and he doesn’t want to touch them.

Jon C. Ogg
April 17, 2007

Jon Ogg can be reached at jonogg@247wallst.com; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.

Posted on: April 17, 2007 – 1:51 pm in Cramer

Cervical Cancer Vaccine Wars Heating Up (GSK, MRK)

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK-NYSE/ADR) has just announced more positive data on its cervical cancer vaccine called CERVARIX(R).  The company has said that it demonstrated 100% protection against "HPV" (Human Papillomavirus-type 16 & 18) for precancerous lesions for more than 5-years.  GSK has also said that the study results also show evidence of additional protection against infections with other cancer-causing virus types.

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Posted on: April 17, 2007 – 1:29 pm in Drug companies

Clearwire Analysts Must Be Dysfunctional

What is one of the worst things technical and fundamental traders hate to see?  When a historically weak stock gaps up on news or on an event, only to lose all of its gains and then go negative.  That’s what has happened to Clearwire (CLWR-NASDAQ) today.

Pre-Market we had two notes on this:  "Clearwire Surging on Analyst Initiations":  It is odd that we even gave this a pre-thought but here is how we ended that piece… So far shares are up 6% pre-market at $19.75 on 125,000 shares.  That may be too much of a bump for a quiet period ending and it may be the norm, but it shows that at least some are trying to see if the carnage is coming to an end or slowing down on the nation’s largest pure-play WiMAX company.  This was after noting the first few of the analyst calls in "Clearwire Analysts to the Rescue."

If the street is going to pummel these stocks based on the coverage metrics out there, then the worst may not be over.  How much worse it can get is far from known, but knowing ahead of time that Clearwire will have to dip back into the market to raise more expansion and cap-ex funds is probably giving the bears more comfort.  That is because on any good news or on any large stock moves to the upside a few months out, they will be looking for an S-3 to be filed at the SEC with the "intent to sell securities to raise funds."

Cramer has maintained in the past that this one was put in the wrong IPO holder hands, but right now it feels like the only "proper" hands are the ones that keep passing it on down the line.  This one doesn’t have the same issues that Vonage Holdings (VG-NYSE) had and still has, but it is hard not to mention the latter in any recent IPO performance since shares are down roughly 30% from the pricing level.  Trading volume is running to where this will either be the 2nd or 3rd most active day (not including the first post-IPO trading day).  If this doesn’t discourage analysts that mostly came out with huge targets, then what does?  It is hard to know where the bottom is, but it is even more discouraging that the shares are performing in this manner when the market is going up day after day.

Jon C. Ogg
April 17, 2007

Jon Ogg can be reached at jonogg@247wallst.com; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.

Posted on: April 17, 2007 – 12:50 pm in Analyst Calls, WiMAX, Wireless

New Highs Hit Highest Levels of 2007

From Ticker Sense

Yesterday’s reading of net new highs (285) on the New York Stock Exchange hit its highest levels since December 5th of last year.  Some market watchers consider a large increase in the number of new highs to be a sign of market strength

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Posted on: April 17, 2007 – 12:44 pm in Research

What Companies Aren’t Fair Game?

From Ticker Sense

Late last year, one Wall St. strategist raised eyebrows when he argued that the S&P 500 was at such a cheap valuation that if it were a company it would be an LBO target. While the statement seemed a bit far-fetched at the time, recent events suggest that any company is fair game.

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Posted on: April 17, 2007 – 12:42 pm in Mergers and Buy Outs

Market Comments From TheStockMasters

Sirius (SIRI) hits a new 52-week low today, shares are now trading under $3. Haven’t we heard enough about this stock already?

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Posted on: April 17, 2007 – 12:40 pm in Research

Time Warner to Keep AOL, Sell Cable, and Buy…MSN?

From Internet Outsider

Matthew Karnitschnig of the WSJ kicks off the morning with a Twilight Zone piece about how Time Warner may not dump AOL after all, but instead sell off cable and "double down" on the Internet by buying another big net company. 

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Posted on: April 17, 2007 – 12:37 pm in Internet

Video Piracy 2.0: Get Ready for Viewer Lawsuits

From Internet Outsider

The Journal’s Kevin Delaney details the latest frontier in online video piracy: Sites like www.YouTVpc.com that assemble links to your favorite movies and TV shows–which are hosted on third-party servers in, say, Malaysia. 

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Posted on: April 17, 2007 – 12:35 pm in Law

StreetInsider.com Unusual 11 Mid-Day Movers 04/17/2007

InsWeb Corp. (Nasdaq: INSW) 67.7% HIGHER; Reported the first operating profit in the history of the Company. Revenues for the first quarter were $8.1 million, compared to $7.7 million in the first quarter of 2006 and $5.8 million in the fourth quarter of 2006. InsWeb reported net income for the first quarter of $0.4 million, or $0.10 per share. This compares to a net loss in the first quarter of 2006 of $1.7 million, or $0.41 per share, and to a net loss of $0.3 million, or $0.08 per share, in the fourth quarter of 2006. The Company was cash flow positive during the first quarter of 2007 and ended the period with cash and short-term investments of $7.1 million.

DG FastChannel (NASDAQ: DGIT) 42.3% HIGHER; Company has entered into definitive agreements with Point.360 (NASDAQ: PTSX) whereby (i) Point.360 will spin off its post production operations to Point.360 stockholders and (ii) DG FastChannel will acquire Point.360’s Ads distribution operations.

Netlist (Nasdaq: NLST) 27% LOWER; Expects to report Q1 net sales of approximately $37 million to $38 million, versus the previous guidance of $40 million to $42 million, and fully diluted earnings per share of approximately $0.02 to $0.03 per share, including estimated stock-based compensation expense of $325,000, versus the previous guidance of $0.07 to $0.08 per share. (Q1 revenue consensus is $41.2 million and EPS consensus is $0.08)

Telik, Inc. (Nasdaq: TELK) 16% HIGHER; Presented results from a Phase 2 clinical trial of the triplet combination of TELCYTA, carboplatin and paclitaxel in the first-line treatment of advanced non-small cell lung cancer. The results include highly statistically and clinically significant improvement in both progression-free survival and overall survival in responding patients who received TELCYTA maintenance therapy as compared with those who did not receive TELCYTA maintenance therapy.

Solarfun Power Holdings Co. Ltd. (Nasdaq: SOLF) 12% LOWER; CIBC World Markets downgrades SOLF from Sector Outperform to Sector Perform.

NL Industries Inc. (NYSE: NL) 11% HIGHER; Stock moving up with no specific news releases.

Fair Isaac Corp. (NYSE: FIC) 8% LOWER; Company lowers guidance. Sees Q2 revenues of $200-$202 million, versus the consensus of $212.8 million. Sees Q2 EPS of $0.35-$0.37 versus the consensus of $0.59 . Sees FY revenues of $795-$805 million, versus the consensus of $864.6 million . Sees FY EPS of $1.55-$1.65, versus the consensus of $2.53. Citigroup downgrades the stock today as well.

Callaway Golf Company (NYSE: ELY) 7.7% HIGHER; Sees Q1 revenues between $330-335 million and EPS between $0.46-0.48. (Current consensus is $322.4 million and $0.39, respectively). S&P Equity Research upgrades the stock.

Trina Solar Ltd. (NYSE: TSL) 7.3% LOWER; Stock giving back after yesterday’s approx. 20% pop with no specific news releases. (momentum play)

BCE Inc. (NYSE: BCE) 7% HIGHER; Confirmed it is reviewing its strategic alternatives. The company said it entered into discussions with a group of leading Canadian pension funds to explore the possibility of taking the publicly-traded company private. KKR has also signed the agreement and will join the Canadian-led consortium as a minority partner.

Black & Decker Corp (NYSE: BDK) 5% HIGHER; Sees Q1 net earnings per diluted share of approximately $1.60 for the first quarter of 2007. The consensus is $1.26.

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Posted on: April 17, 2007 – 12:33 pm in Research