Daily Archives: April 19, 2007

The 52-Week Low Club

Imation (IMN) Computer storage products maker has poor earnings, gets downgraded by Baird, and makes expensive acquisition. Three strikes and you’re out. Stock drops to $35.69. The 52-week high was $49.20.

Georgia Gulf (GGC) Chemical and home improvement company still having fall-out from bad quarter. Returns to the club. Moves down to $14.85 from 52-week high of $32.88.

TVI (TVIN) All hell breaks loose at this supplier shelters and protective equipment to Homeland Security Dept. Company says the quarter will be bad. CEO and another top officer leave. At least they put a retired Lieutenant General in charge. Shares off 21% to $1.05 from 52-week high of $3.88. Salute when you say that.

Spansion (SPSN) Flash memory is not a good business to be in now. Big Q1 loss and cost cuts. Drops to $9.73 from 52-week high of $18.59.

Power-One (PWER)  The company which makes power conversion products used in electronic equipment misses forecasts. Drops to $4.29 from 52-week high of $8.15.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Posted on: April 19, 2007 – 6:10 pm in HI/LOW

Cramer’s Sell Block (April 19, 2007)

Stock Tickers: CHTR, SIRI, XMSR, CMGI, KRY, VG, FMT

Jim Cramer featured his SELL BLOCK series, where he reviews his pigs and prizes for Buy, Sell, or Hold strategies out of his past picks.  These were all reviews from the CNBC "Favorite Stocks" out of the CNBC Investing Challenge that is going on right now.

Charter Communications (CHTR-NASDAQ) is the only one he’d buy, but you can take some profits.  These are some of Cramer’s Sell’s or Avoids:

Sirius Satellite Radio (SIRI-NASDAQ):  No he can’t say buy because of the hard time they are getting over the XM Satellite Radio (XMSR-NASDAQ) merger after 4 Congressional hearings.  He thinks XM may fold if the deal doesn’t go through.

CMGI (CMGI-NASDAQ) is one that Cramer would stay away from since it has changed business models to many times and is now masquerading as a supply chain logistics company.  Oddly enough, he was fairly positive on this one before.

Crystallex (KRY), the gold mine he’s caught a double in but he wants to stay away and won’t back anything tied to Chavez risks like this one is.

Vonage Holdings (VG-NYSE) is one he wouldn’t touch ever.  He thinks it may have to bankrupt and is one of the worst stocks he’s ever seen.

Fremont General (FMT-NYSE) is a subprime play, and he’d rather see you in others.

Some of these are cult stocks, and Cramer probably just slapped a few of them down.  I guess BooYah, went to Doh!

Jon C. Ogg
April 19, 2007

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

Posted on: April 19, 2007 – 6:05 pm in Cramer, , , , , , ,

Cramer’s Water Stock

Jim Cramer is still rolling on over his GREEN INVESTING strategies: Tetra Tech (TTEK-NASDAQ), a water investment, is his pick tonight on CNBC’s Mad Money.   that is a consulting and engineering company.  It is also a play on global warming and natural disasters because they work on water pollution along coastal properties and even in tsunami warnings.  This one is up on new year high’s in after-hours, a further indication he’s usually just chasing the stocks putting in new highs.  Tetra Tech is also one I have been following as one of the better water investments out there, but this one has gotten at the top of its 18-month trading range (and now above it); this one hit $25.00 back at the end of 2003 and start of 2004.  At least this one isn’t into yellow water.

Jon C. Ogg
April 19, 2007

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

Posted on: April 19, 2007 – 5:39 pm in Cramer

Cramer’s Latin American Coat Tail Riding (AMX)

On tonight’s MAD MONEY on CNBC, Cramer was discussing following smart money like Gates or Buffett. But he thinks you can follow Carlos Slim as the overseas Buffett and is now the second richest man in the world.  He makes great investments in Latin American.  One pink sheet stock was good, he thought about Kraft, he threw ouit Allis-Chalmers, or a Tel-Mex subsidiary; BUT Cramer decided that he liked American Movil S.A.B. (AMX-NYSE) as the pick, even though it is at a 52-week high.  He thinks this is great at 80% of the Mexican wireless market and has major Latin exposure nand is trying to become the largest in Brazil.

Keep in mind that the equivalent market cap on AMX shares are up almost 100% off the lows of the year and its equivalent market cap its $90+ Billion.  ‘Como se dice, el Cramero?’

Jon C. Ogg
April 19, 2007

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

Posted on: April 19, 2007 – 5:10 pm in Cramer

AMD: Blood In The Streets, Gross Margin At 31%

AMD (AMD) rallied like a house afire, closing the regular session at $14.28. up 2.7% on over 50 million shares, about double its normal volume.

AMD reported revenue of $1.233 billion and a GAAP loss of $504 million. In the quarter a year ago, revenue was $1.33 billion and the company had a profit of $259 million.

Gross margins fell to an unbelieveable 31%. In the same quarter a year ago, they were 59%. In Q4 06, 40%.

The company expects the next quarter to be flat.

The company’s cash dropped to $1.167 billion from $1.541 billion at the end of last year. Receiveables dropped from $1.14 billion to $667 million. Never a good sign.

Advanced Micro Devices was expected to report a loss of 48 cents per share for the first quarter. Analysts on average, expect AMD to report a 5 percent sales decline to $1.26 billion

The company this month forecast sales of $1.22 billion after last month saying it was unlikely to meet its previous target for sales of $1.6 billion to $1.7 billion.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Posted on: April 19, 2007 – 3:25 pm in Earnings

Google’s Midas Touch

Goolge (GOOG) posted non-GAAP EPS of $3.68 ($3.18 GAAP) and revenues of $3.66 Billion on a GAAP basis, but its ex-TAC revenues were $2.53 Billion (thats the # to look at) versus estimates of $3.30 EPS & $2.495 Billion in revenues; this beats even the Whisper on EPS.  The company’s TAC has been flat at 31% of revenues now for 3 quarters.  Operating margins were 49% versus roughly 48% estimates.  It added almost 1600 workers, even higher than what was believed: On a worldwide basis, Google employed 12,238 full-time employees as of March 31, 2007, up from 10,674 full time employees as of December 31, 2006.

A true skeptic could say that they wanted to see higher revenues, but the initial reaction is up by 2% to $482+ in after-hours.  We would still like to see the stock split, and we aren’t alone there; and here’s what we said in there ahead of time with a full preview from yesterday inside that story.

It is still growing internationally: revenues outside of the US were 47% of total, up from 44% in Q4 2006 and up from 42% of Q1 2006.  The PAID CLICKS related to Ads served on Google sites and AdSense partners grew 52% from Q1 2006 and grew 13% from Q4 2006.

Google also announced that Eric Schmidt has been elected Chairman of the Board of Directors, and John L. Hennessy, President of Stanford University, has been elected Lead Independent Director. Dr. Schmidt has been a Director since March 2001, and Dr. Hennessy has been a Director since April 2004.

As of March 31, 2007, cash and equivalents equivalents was $11.9 billion and it had an effective tax rate of 26%.  Naysayers can say what they want.  We’ll have to get through the conference call and the myriad of analyst calls on it before knowing where this one is opening tomorrow, but this one looks great on first look.

Jon C. Ogg
April 19, 2007

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

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

Comments From TheStockMasters NFLX, BBI

In an interesting coincidence rivals Netflix (NFLX) and Blockbuster (BBI) both received downgrades today.
The War
First Albany cut Netflix Inc. to “Neutral” from “Buy” to reflect weak industry subscriber additions.
Blockbuster was downgraded to “Hold” from “Buy” at Soleil. They think BBI’s Total Access program is going to cut into their profit and cash flow. Soleil said:
“We believe Blockbuster is positioning itself for the future evolution of the video rental business to downloading. However, the expansion of this program (Total Access) can be costly, particularly with customers who are aggressive users of the free coupon benefit.”
NFLX is trading around $21 a share with a P/E of 29.
BBI is trading around $6.30 a share with a P/E of 27.
So who’s the better bet?
Yesterday NFLX more than doubled it’s Q1 profit to $9.9M but it reduced its fiscal-year outlook, warning investors of looming competitors like ol’ Blockbuster. Blockbuster wants Netflix’s market share and when you’ve got a hungry dog just around the corner, you can count on increased pressure and dog-like tactics to take the No. 1 seat back. Keep in mind BBI also has Carl Icahn’s millions poured into it and that guy is ruthless at getting his investment back. So which one to buy? The Masters pick BBI this round, but how about forget both stocks and stick with oil. Better yet, just short the market, doomsday is coming. Don’t believe it, the DOW hit an all-time high of 12,803.84. A correction is coming people.

http://www.thestockmasters.com/index.asp

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Posted on: April 19, 2007 – 2:37 pm in Research

Cramer & Another Bank Merger Pick

On today’s STOP TRADING segment on CNBC, Cramer said that he went back over the Merrill Lynch (MER-NYSE) conference call and he thinks that the other mergers in the sector have gone well enough and thinks that Merrill Lynch (MER-NYSE) will buy Countrywide Financial Corp. (CFC-NYSE).  He thinks when they would have liked to have bought it was 6-months ago and it would have been a mistake, but now he thinks this would make sense.  This is part of the fact that Countrywide is the last man standing in subprime loans and is the winner.  He’d buy the JULY CALLS on the stock (CFC-NYSE) as it is going higher and he thinks it could fetch $45.00 to $48.00.

Last night he noted Downey Financial Corp. (DSL-NYSE) as a merger pick, and that one is up almost 3% today on almost 4-times normal trading volume because of his stock tout.  He noted this one again today.

Jon C. Ogg
April 19, 2007

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

Posted on: April 19, 2007 – 1:46 pm in Bait Shop, Banking, Cramer, Financial Stocks, Mergers and Buy Outs

Cramer’s Way To Profit Off China Growth

On one of today’s videos of Jim Cramer on TheStreet.com, Cramer reviewed China growing too fast and how to play it….Cramer said this is not new and we’ve seen it before with China pulling back on too much growth.

Cramer has a play, and it is in the mineral conglomerates: BHP Billiton (BHP-NYSE), Lundin (LMC-NYSE), Freeport McMoRan (FCX-NYSE), Peabody (BTU-NYSE), and Arch Coal (ACI-NYSE) all have to retreat on this news.  He even noted that they "have to go down, but then you have to buy them after they pul back" because China can’t effectively slow its growth.

Cramer thinks that Ameritrade (AMTD-NASDAQ) and E*Trade (ETFC-NASDAQ) are showing that the retail investor can be easily scared by a 500 point drop.  Neither company got any boost to trading activities by lowering prices, so it was an inelastic situation and the free trading isn’t helping what he thinks is "the public missing out on a fabulous move."

Jon C. Ogg
April 19, 2007

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

Posted on: April 19, 2007 – 12:21 pm in Cramer

Could Google Split Its Stock After Earnings?

Google (GOOG-NASDAQ) reports earnings after the close today, but even the remaining few unwired monks in Tibet probably know that by now.  Google is expected to post $3.30 EPS & $2.495 Billion in revenues; next quarter $3.42 EPS & R$2.64 Billion.  Keep in mind that revenues are ex-TAC (traffic acquisition costs) and the company gives no guidance.  If you would like to see what else to look for, here is the full earnings preview of what we ran yesterday ahead of earnings.

After reviewing the options trading today, the inefficiencies of its stock having such a high stock price start to become clear.  In percentage terms the actual strike comparisons are more favorable because it makes the distance in between strike prices less on a percentage basis.  But in reality, it is keeping the trading volume, investor base, and ease of entry down.  There is also the argument that the volume and open interest could change drastically.  Even sophisticated portfolio managers in interviews commented at $300, $400, and $500 that the stock had run up too much and would frequently refer to the actual stock price more so than the actual price/sales or forward price/earnings ratios.  If portfolio managers and ’smart money’ is tricked into this raw stock price analysis, then you know Main Street might be in the same camp.  In fact, if the street estimates are accurate, GOOG shares trade at somewhere close to 33-times 2007 expected EPS; and that is not a number that most fund managers can claim as overly excessive for this growth story.  So what is the answer?

Google has one of two options here as far as we are concerned that would do nothing to change the underlying structure of the company.  The company could announce an outright stock split as option one.  If the company doesn’t want to do this outright, they could add into their presentation on their conference call this sentence: "We are reviewing our current stock price efficiency, but have not yet made any determinations."  In truth, some have already noted in the past that this could come up for review down the road but nothing has ever happened.  This would let the company stick its toe in the water to see how the market reacts instead of jumping in outright.

This "hope of a split" has been hoped for on numerous occasions and by more than numerous market players.  We have made note of this before, and we are not at all the only ones that have pondered this (CNET, Motley Fool, CNN, TheStret.Com, and more).  So far nothing has come from the company on this, but it could be the thing that makes Wall Street (or at least Main Street) fall in love all over again.

The shares closed at $476.01 yesterday.  It has been as high as $513.00 in 2007 and as low as $360.00+ in 2006.  Back in January 2006, GOOG shares were almost at the same levels as now.  The company priced its IPO at $85.00 back in 2004, and the company has sold shares in secondary offerings since the IPO twice; the first time at $295.00 and the second time at $389.75.  So, the company doesn’t HAVE to maintain this high-price strategy by any stretch of the imagination.  This will all boil down to what the company wants to do, and they really don’t have to answer to anyone.  We can’t predict this by any means, but maybe the company should consider this since it would have no net impact on the operations of the company. 

Jon C. Ogg
April 19, 2007

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

Posted on: April 19, 2007 – 11:39 am in Earnings, Internet, Options, Software, Stock Splits

24/7 Wall St. Starbucks Store Evaluation Tour

Peter Lynch, who had one of the great investment track records while at Fidelity once made this point:  "An amateur investor can pick tomorrow’s big winners by paying attention to new developments at the workplace, the mall, the auto showrooms, the restaurants, or anywhere a promising new enterprise makes its debut."

And  Howard Schultz, the founder of Starbucks (SBUX), recently wrote to his management: "Over the past ten years, in order to achieve the growth, development, and scale necessary to go from less than 1,000 stores to 13,000 stores and beyond, we have had to make a series of decisions that, in retrospect, have lead to the watering down of the Starbucks experience, and, what some might call the commoditization of our brand." 

24/7 Wall St. is setting out to test the Lynch investment approach, and to find out if Mr. Schultz does have a problem Our writers will visit at least one Starbucks a day at 7.30 AM to 8.30 AM local time. We will look at stores in over a dozen cities. Each outlet will be graded on the time it takes from getting in line until the order is delivered, cleanliness of the store, cleanliness of the bathroom, whether the store has adequate seating, the friendliness and professionalism of personnel, whether their is adequate inventory, and overall ambiance. Each of these will be grade 1 though 3, with 3 being the best score.

Location: High Ridge Road, Stamford, CT, just south of Exit 15 on Merritt Parkway. Time: 7.55 AM.

Wait time: 1 minute, 22 seconds (the guy was fast as lightning) Cleanliness–2, Bathroom–3, Seating–3, Staff–2, Inventory–3, Ambiance–2. Music was much too loud, but WiFi worked well. Service was quick, but not personal.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Posted on: April 19, 2007 – 11:33 am in Retail

LSTR: Landstar Earnings and Guidance Show Trucking Slowdown Continues

By William Trent, CFA of Stock Market Beat

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Posted on: April 19, 2007 – 11:27 am in Earnings

ASD: American Standard Sets the Standard for Turnarounds

By William Trent, CFA of Stock Market Beat

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Posted on: April 19, 2007 – 11:24 am in Research

S&P 500 Stocks Furthest Below 50-Day Moving Average

From Ticker Sense

Below we highlight the 8 stocks in the S&P 500 that are trading furthest below their 50-day moving averages.

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Posted on: April 19, 2007 – 11:21 am in Research

Click Fraud Getting Worse, Especially on Content Networks

From Internet Outsider

Click Forensics, a Texas-based company that tracks click fraud using detailed campaign data from more than 3,500 marketers, reported that industry-wide click fraud increased modestly in Q1 to its highest level ever: about 15% of all clicks, versus 14% in Q4 2006.

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Posted on: April 19, 2007 – 11:18 am in Internet

MetroPCS Rises Despite Other Recent IPO’s

MetroPCS (PCS-NYSE) did manage to be the first $1 Billion+ as far as capital raised in an IPO for 2007.  The stock priced its 50 million share IPO at $23.00 per share, and it should be noted that 12.5 million of those shares were sold by selling shareholders.  Metro’s underwriting group was a large one: joint book-running managers were Bear Stearns, Banc of America, Merrill Lynch, and Morgan Stanley; co-managers were UBS, Thomas Weisel Partners, Wachovia, and Raymond James.

Shares are trading up at $26.25 and have already seen some 19 million shares trade.  It’s good to see that (at least so far) there hasn’t been any carnage after the botched IPO’s by Vonage (VG) and Clearwire (CLWR).  That is because they are not the same sort of company as the others.  This is one of the last cellular companies that hasn’t been public and the company posted 2006 revenues of $1.547 Billion and net income of $114 million.

This morning the stock was already initiated with a BUY rating by Jefferies, which was not in the underwriting group.  The only thing worth noting here is that some of the older systems have been pulling up the "PCS" ticker as the old Sprint-PCS tracking stock, but that has probably been fixed by now.

Shares of Leap Wireless (LEAP-NASDAQ) are trading marginally lower, and Rural Cellular (RCCC-NASDAQ) are trading marginally higher.

Jon C. Ogg
April 19, 2007

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

Posted on: April 19, 2007 – 10:00 am in IPOs, Telecom, Wireless

Southwest Airlines: Losing Its Fuel Hedge Competitive Advantages

Southwest Airlines (LUV-NYSE) is one to watch as its fuel hedge advantages are becoming less and less compared to other legacy and discount air carriers.  The company reported $0.04 EPS on an 8.9% revenue rise to $2.2 Billion.  The headline number is $0.12 EPS, but the company says its "economic net income" was $0.04 and goes further to compare it directly to the First Call mean estimate of $0.04 (Revenue estimates were $2.21 Billion, too).

We previously ran a story comparing this company to legacy carriers, because this one is not just a pure-play discount airline anymore if you do your own price comparisons to other airlines.  It still has its loyalists that would fly it over any others, so it isn’t like the company is doing the wrong thing.  Sometimes the competitive advantages are taken away by the market, and that is what is happening.  The single most important factor ahead is that Southwest is no longer at ‘as large’ of a competitive advantage based on old fuel costs being hedged, and that is dwindling further in the coming year.

It noted $65 million in favorable cash settlements from derivative contracts for Q1 2007, BUT fuel costs per gallon increased 11.6 percent to $1.63; and has derivative contracts for over 95% of estimated Q2 2007 fuel consumption capped at an average crude-equivalent price of approximately $50 per barrel (compared to over 75% at approximately $36 per barrel for Q2 2006).  Southwest says it is "hopeful" that Q2 2007 fuel costs will not exceed $1.70 per gallon. it also maintains that it has derivative contracts for approximately 90% of estimated fuel consumption for the Second Half of 2007 at an average crude-equivalent price of approximately $50 per barrel.

Its forward fuel hedges are dwindling, which means this gets to visit the same barrel session as the other airlines on fuel costs.  In 2005 they were sitting pretty with an average cost per gallon of only $1.03, but we are almost in the middle of 2007 and those hedges could only be purchased for so long into the future.  Its 2006 total fuel costs rose 48.5% to $1.53 because so many hedges ratcheted higher.  According to its last annual report here is the company’s fuel hedge for forward years ("approximate" per barrel basis, as of mid-January):

2007 is 95% hedged at $50/barrel;
2008 is 65% hedged at $49/barrel;
2009 is over 50% hedged at $51/barrel;
2010 is over 25% hedged at $63/barrel;
2010 is over is 15% hedged at $64/barrel;
2012 is 15% hedged at $63/barrel.

So if you look at current prices with crude at $62.21, the company is much closer to coming online to current fuel prices than it has been in any recent year.  Other airlines have managed to hedge a portion of their fuel costs as well.  The truth is that Southwest STILL has what is probably the best fuel hedges for 2007 and 2008, but after that the relative advantages to the legacy and discount air carriers comes down drastically. 

Southwest also noted that Q1 2007 unit costs, excluding fuel, rose 1.7% over last year (as expected).  It has also disclosed upcoming labor contract risks, although that is the case in the entire airline sector.

Shares are down about 2% at $15.30 today after the earnings report, and its 52-week trading range is $14.50 to $18.20.  On a longer term basis the average trading band is really $13 to $18 per share over 90% of the last 5+ years.

Jon C. Ogg
April 19, 2007

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

Posted on: April 19, 2007 – 9:28 am in Airlines, Earnings

Pfizer Looks Like a Bond Replacement – Earnings Preview (PFE)

Pfizer (PFE) reports on Friday, and just liketearing off a band-aid, investors are hoping the earnings release tobe quick, and relatively painless.  Nobody’s expecting anythingspectacular on the “good news” front, while many issues both shortand long term swirl around the company like vultures (or maybe that’sjust the generics).   Just to get things framed,let’s start with the boilerplates:

1st quarter estimates are $0.57 EPS and revenues of $11.9 billion; estimates forthe second quarter call for earnings to be down sequentially, with $0.54expected.  Going out a little further,revenue growth is supposed to be essentially flat for both 2007 and2008, after which it becomes anybody’s guess.   

The company suffered a majorsetback when promising HDL drug torcetrapib was shut down in the middleof clinical trials; some estimates on this one had it selling $4-5 billionannually in the U.S. alone.  While it won’t affect estimatesfor this year and next, it puts a huge hole in the middle of Pfizer’slineup.  Torcetrapib was supposed to be a combo drug that utilizedtop seller Lipitor, which is already coming down from peak sales levels. 

Lipitor made up more than 25%of revenues in 2006, but is expected to only sell through $1.9 billiondomesticaly in the 1st quarter, down 4% year-over-year. Worldwide revenues should still eke out a small gain thanks to overseasgrowth and a 5% price hike back in January.  The U.S. market forLipitor is expected to die slowly from here, with Merck’s competing Vytorin expected to grow 60% in the past quarter.  We gave a previewof Merck’s earningshere. 

While Lipitor’s main patentis good until 2010, pending patent losses at PFE figure to be a realrevenue dampener for the remainder of year; the most notable being Norvasc,a $4.9 billion seller worldwide in 2006.  Only Mylan’s (MYL) product is out for the next six months,but then of course there will be a swath and sales levels will finishtheir plummet.  Antidepressant Zoloft and antibioticZithromax both lost exclusivity in 2006, and allergy medicine Zyrtecis coming off later this year.

After looking through themost recent annual report, it is difficult to see Pfizer having the capacityto fill all those billions in decelerating sales.  While the companyhas a few $1 billion drugs that are growing, they have no (again, notone) drugs with sales over $2 billion annually that are still on theupswing.

When looking over the near-termoptions, there is a large open interest (but quiet trading) in the April$25 PUTS (that also expire on Friday); these could see large trading volumes if the company makes any real guidance changes on Friday.  It will be curious to see what kind of downsidethis stock actually has in the coming months, as the 4.30% yield aloneis a solid backstop. 

In addition, valuation willstill be in the low teens barring a cataclysmic event, as the companycurrently trades for less than 11x trailing earnings and has dozensof drugs in the upper testing stages.  We may be calling Pfizerthe first Pharma REIT in a few quarters, as the $22 to $25 price rangemay be a relative floor but growth will be secondary to “asset management”of the drugs. It is also still a wildcard as to what the company will do with its billions of dollars added on from the sale of its consumer products unit to Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) 

Ryan Barnes
April 18, 2007

Ryan Barnes can be reachedat ryanbarnes@247wallst.com; he does not own securities in thecompanies he covers.

Posted on: April 19, 2007 – 8:19 am in Drug companies, Earnings, Pharmaceuticals

Gannett Holds On By Its Fingers

Revenue at Gannett (GCI) was flat for the quarter. It did have a couple of TV stations in there for the period. They weren’t in last year.

Total sales hung around $1.8 billion. Advertising was down 2% to $1.24 billion. Circulation revenue was flat at $324 million. With total subscribers dropping, the company must have had some ability to increase prices.  Maybe Cramer was right the other night when he discussed Gannett as needing to acquire Monster Worldwide (MNST).

Revenue in the well-regarded "other" category was up 11% to $121 million. 24/7 will have to get back to you on that.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Posted on: April 19, 2007 – 7:59 am in Media

Merrill Lynch: More Signs That Investment Banking Rules The Universe

Merrill Lynch (MER) reveue in Q1 rose 24% to $9.85 billion. EPS was up from $1.65 to $2.26 when a charge from last year is taken out.

But, the story was investment banking. That segment at the company was up 43% to $6.5 billion. Within that segment, equity-market revenue rose 50%.

No one wants their kids to be doctors anymore. The should go into investment banking.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Posted on: April 19, 2007 – 7:35 am in Financial Stocks