Daily Archives: July 23, 2007

Can Pepsi Earnings Win the Pepsi-Coke Investor Taste Test? (PEP, KO)

Pepsico (NYSE:PEP) will grace us with the presence of its earnings Tuesday morning.  Analysts, according to First Call, are looking for EPS to come in at $0.89 on revenues of almost $9.4 Billion.  The following quarter expectations are $0.97 EPS and $9.9 Billion in revenues.  Pepsico of late has had a recent history of beating expectations over the last 4 reports, except for two quarters ago when it merely met expectations.

What will be of interest outside of earnings is the company’s ongoing structure and switch into slightly healthier (or less-bad) snack foods.  If the comapny announces any major changes to its water, juices, and beverages unit, that will take the cake by far.  But with a 3% rise at the end of Monday trading, it doesn’t seem as though many are worried.

Technicians will almost certainly be paying close attention because while the fundamentals have been strong and the weak dollar should theoretically help, the chart has not been able to hold strength.  A break much under $64.25 could even spell some trouble from the pure chartists.  The fundamental crowd from Wall Street analysts has an average target of $75.00, so tomorrow may be key for the next trend in Pepsico shares.  Competitor Coca-Cola (NYSE:KO) exceeded targets last week and its shares closed up less than 1% on that day.  Pepsico shares closed lower the day Coke reported,and with the gain today shares are basically back to the pre-earnings levels.

Jon C. Ogg
July 23, 2007

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

AT&T Earnings Tuesday, First Look at Formal iPhone Sales? (T, VZ, AAPL)

Dow Jones Industiral Average component and reconstituted "Bells" telecom player AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) is set to report earnings Tuesday morning.  Shares initially did quite well this year after a a near 50% recovery from lows, even if they have been a bit rangebound for the last 60 days.  Analysts are looking for $0.67 EPS on revenues of $29.6 Billion according to First Call. If the company offers formal guidance, next quarter EPS is pegged at $0.70 and revenues are pegged at $29.9 Billion.

The difference today compared to its earnings last quarter is that the chart has flattened out more than it had next quarter.  It won’t be known if it this was just a consolidation for a breather back to the upside or if this was a near-term top until after the report.  Wall Street analysts still have an average price target of close to $44.00 based on their fundamental analysis for the next 12 to 18 months.  This is also only the second report out of the company that has all of the full integrations of the AT&T-SBC-BellSouth-Cingular all truly under one name and roof, and those integrations will probably be a focus. 

This will also be the first real analysis offered on the prized iPhone from Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), so look for some focus there and see if that can impact estimates on Apple’s numbers or future guidance coming later in the week; and we may get to glimpse at least some formation of what AT&T can expect financially from teh exclusive alliance.  It will be interesting to see if the company comments on the recent telegraph by Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) that it wants to bid in the next spectrum auctions, as well as how well the company is winning broadband customers with high speed web access and digital TV packages againt the cable operators. 

Shares spent most of Monday higher by 2% along with a strong market, so investors weren’t showing any signs of panic ahead of the numbers.  This could also be viewed as a harbinger for competitor Verizon Communications (NYSE:VZ), which reports earnings on July 30.

Jon C. Ogg
July 23, 2007

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

Texas Instruments (TXN): Wall St. Is Not Impressed

Texas Instruments (TXN) was expected to report a 10% decline in earnings to 42 cents a share on a 7% fall in sales to $3.45 billion for the second quarter, according to a survey of analysts by Thomson Financial.

The company’s shares staged a share rally during the day rising from $37.94 to $38.79. The stock gave most of that back in the last two hours of trading. 

The late sellers must have had a crystal ball.

The company’s Q2 EPS was $.42 compared to $1.50 in the period a year ago. Q2 revenue dropped to $3.42 billion compared to $3.7 billion last year. New orders dropped $455 million year-over-year to $3.45 billion

TI expects revenue for the next quarter to be $3.49 billion to $3.79 billion and EPS to in the range of $0.46 to $0.52

After hours shares dropped 3.4%.

Douglas A. McIntyre

American Express (AXP): Nothing Going On

American Express (AXP) was expected to report earnings of 86 cents a share on sales of $7.49 million for the second quarter

The company reported second quarter EPS of  $.88 vs $.76 last year.

Revenue net of interest expense was $7.13 billion vs $6.54 billion in the quarter last year.

Net income for the quarter also totaled $1.1 billion, up 12 percent from $945 million a year ago.

The company said: "Spending on American Express cards rose 15 percent and we added more than 2 million cards during the last three months.

Wall St. was not much impressed. The stock dropped about .5% after hours.

Douglas A. McIntyre

NetFlix (NFLX) Comes Back, A Little

NetFlix (NFLX) lost 12% of it market value today and fell as low as $17.17. That was until Wall St. saw the company’s earnings.

Revenue for the second quarter of 2007 was $303.7 million, representing 27 percent year-over-year growth from $239.4 million for the second quarter of 2006.GAAP net income for the second quarter of 2007 increased 50% to $25.6 million, or $0.37 per diluted share, compared to GAAP net income of $17.0 million, or $0.25 per diluted share, for the second quarter of 2006.

Wall St.’s forecast was 23 cents a share on $308 million in second-quarter revenue

Netflix ended the second quarter of 2007 with approximately 6,742,000 total subscribers, representing 30 percent year-over-year growth from 5,169,000 total subscribers at the end of the second quarter of 2006 and 1 percent sequential decline from 6,797,000 subscribers at the end of the first quarter of 2007.

The shares rose about 2% after hours.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Internet Ideas: IPOs For Dummies

Internet Ideas, a web content company controlled by Idealab, plans to raise $100 million in an IPO. Idealab has 77% voting control of the firm.

The question about the IPO is why anyone would want to own the shares.

The company owns a number of websites including carsdirect.com, vacationhomes.com, loan.com, and apartmentrating.com. All are second tier sites on a good day.

In the first quarter of this year, revenue dropped from $21.9 million last year to $19.1 million. What the company calls adjusted EBITDA fell from $7.9 million to $5.9 million over the same period.

The company already has $120 million or so in cash and investments available for sale.

Modest growth, at best. Second tier properties.

No sale.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Starbucks (SBUX) Rising A Week Before Earnings

Starbucks (SBUX) has moved up 8% in the last week, coming off 52-week lows. Earnings are scheduled for August 1.

According to Reuters, the company will delay opening stores in India. "India is one of five nations that Starbucks has said it is focusing on for international expansion. The others are Russia, China, Egypt and Brazil," Reuters reports.

It may be that the market has some optimism that the coffee chain will stop opening new retail outlets just for the sake of having a higher store count. The most closely watched number coming out with earnings may be same-store sales in the US and overseas.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Wal-Mart (WMT): How About A $300 PC?

Word is that Wal-Mart (WMT) will offer a sub-$300 back-to-school PC. Early versions may have Microsoft (MSFT) Windows but DeskTopLinux says that it will ship with Ubuntu Linux soon.

Having a such an inexpensive PC could help Wal-Mart take more business from retailers like Best Buy (BBY) and Circuit City (CC), but it is probably a bigger win for the open source Linux community. While getting Linux into enterprise servers has not been a big deal, getting onto the PC desk-top has been nearly impossible.

Wal-Mart could help change that. The barrier will be how easy the desktop version of Linux is to use. If its requires relearning how to navigate around the computer, it may be DOA.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Vonage New All-Time Lows, Again (VG)

Vonage Holdings Inc. (NYSE:VG) is trading as though it should be named Vonage Slippings.  The company has put in 52-week and all-time lows for what looks like may end up being the third day in a row if these levels hold.  Shares closed under $3.00 again last week and haven’t been able to see $3.00 since, with shares down more than another 5% at $2.61 mid-day.

The sad part is that the earnings for the June 30 quarter are not out until August 9, 2007.  That means there may be a news vacuum if the company doesn’t have any new material information.  It seems that shares have been weak since the new Ooma free phone was brought out recently, and the closure of competitor SunRocket hasn’t seemed to yield any significant ‘investor hopes’ for new subscribers that would have hoped some of those 200,000 (said to be) users would instantly migrate.

If the company doesn’t issue any news between now and then, that leaves more than two weeks before we know what the quarter looked like and what the subscriber guidance will be.  Last quarter the company saw a 0.1% sequential churn rise to 2.4% and marketing expenses were 46% of revenue at $91 million, with average marketing costs per gross subscriber line running $273 (down from $306 the prior quarter).  Its marketing budget for 2007 was noted as $310 million.  Vonage also ended last quarter with $410 million in cash and equivalents (before the $66 million surety bond ruling and 5.5% royalty revenue ruling)….. The company also noted that the ruling will keep it from commenting on any prior financial guidance.

Of the analysts that cover the VoIP provider, there are no positive ratings on the stock.  The literary Dr. Pangloss might still be positive, but even he would admit that his call would be quite contrarian if he really existed.

Jon C. Ogg
July 23, 2007

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

Texas Instruments: Earnings Half Full or Half Empty? (TXN, BRCM, QCOM, SMH)

Texas Instruments,Inc. (NYSE:TXN) will post earnings after the close, and First Call estimates are $0.42 EPS and $3.45 billion in revenues.  We usually get guidance of out of Texas Instruments, and next quarter consensus is $0.49 EPS on $3.7 billion revenues with fiscal December-2007 $1.76 EPS on $14.1 Billion revenues.

It wasn’t all that long ago that shares of Texas Instruments were in a slump, and it has gained with the sector.  Shares are up some roughly 30% since the start of April.  Analysts have an average price target just north of $40.00, not much higher than the $38.60 price today.  This implies that if analysts are going to endorse the stock that they will have to raise targets for the mobile chip and components giant.  Shares of the Semiconductor HOLDRs (NYSE:SMH) were at an adjusted $33.35 on April 2, so those shares are up less than Texas Instruments with their 20% performance since that date.

If there is a sell-off in shares, technicians may view the chart as no longer being in a near-term up-trend.  Longer-term chartists still have a decent cushion before they’d start really worrying.  Shares trade currently with a forward P/E ratio for 2007 of 21.8.  Perhaps the most interesting notes will be what this company says about cell phone makers.  Companies to watch based on Texas Instruments are Broadcom (NASDAQ:BRCM) (Broadcom just reported last week) and Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM), although it is big enough it can spill over into many chip names.  What has accounted for part of recent outperformance?  Ties and more hopes for Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPhone. 

Just last quarter the company noted it was seeing a rebound in orders and expected to see sequential growth. On the June 11 mid-quarter update, TI gave the following guidance: Total revenue between $3.36 billion and $3.51 billion, compared with the prior range of $3.32 billion to $3.60 billion; Semiconductor revenue between $3.20 billion and $3.34 billion, compared with the prior range of $3.14 billion to $3.40 billion; and Education Technology revenue between $160 million and $170 million, compared with the prior range of $180 million to $200 million (lower estimate reflects delays by retailers in stocking their back-to-school calculator inventory until closer to the start of school in the third quarter).  TI also said its expects EPS from continuing operations between $0.40 and $0.44, compared with the previous range of $0.39 to $0.45.

Jon C. Ogg
July 23, 2007

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

SIRIUS/XM Offering Programming A La Carte in FCC Filing (SIRI, XMSR)

This may or may not make a difference in the approval process of the merger between SIRIUS Satellite Radio (NASDAQ:SIRI) and XM Satellite Radio (NASDAQ:XMSR).  The companies have said they will offer an a la carte programming selection for clients after the companies merge.  This is ahead of tomorrow’s filing of a joint reply to the FCC that will include pricing plans and programming.  In total, it looks like the companies announced a suite of eight post-merger programmingoptions.

One option is for 50 channels at $6.99, down from $12.95 today; plus those subscribers can add channels for $0.25 each.  A second option of 100 channels will allow SIRIUS customers to select from XM’s programming and vice versa.  There will also be ‘family-friendly’ options to block adult shows.  There is also a plan for a "Best Of Both" programming.  These plans will have price ranges from $6.99 to $16.99.

Before thinking this will be immediate, there will be some time.  A la carteprogramming will be available beginning within One-Year following the merger,and the other programming options will be available beginning within Six-Months following the merger.  If you want to see more details on the programming, you can see it at the merger site here

Jon C. Ogg
July 23, 2007

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

Verizon’s (VZ) Big Headache

Fiber was supposed to be Verizon’s (VZ) panacea. Spend $23 billion and lay down 80,000 miles of wire to 18 million homes.

But, as Fortune points out fiber has one very significant problem: "Bend it a little and the light – and therefore the data – starts to escape." Opps. Fortune adds: "This intolerance for bending can make fiber optics a nightmare to install in someone’s home"

Corning (GLW) may be close to finding a technology solution to the problem, but it is not there yet.

The hidden cost of Verizon’s FiOS may end up being its installation cost. Getting the product into has many homes as possible as quickly as possible is critical to Verizon competing with the cable companies for voice/broadband/TV bundled packages.

Critical, and, it would seem, more expensive than anticipated.

Douglas A. McIntyre

A Sneaky Deal For Cumulus (CMLS)

Cumulus Media (CMLS) is up 38% on news that the company’s CEO and Merrill Lynch Global Private Equity will pay $11.75 a share for the company. It closed Friday at $8.37.

The company traded at $11.68 last November.

In the last quarter net revenues decreased from $75.3 million in 2006 to $72.4 million in 2007, a 3.8% decrease. This decrease was primarily the result of the contribution of the Company’s Houston and Kansas City stations to our affiliate, Cumulus Media Partners, LLC ("CMP"), on May 4, 2006.

Looks like a good deal for the insiders.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Credit Market Woes Killing Expedia’s Buyback Ambitions (EXPE, OWW, TZOO, PCLN)

Expedia (NASDAQ:EXPE) is showing that credit market woes (and probably online travel stock weakness) aren’t limited to its competitors.  The company came clean this morning by saying it is decreasing its number of shares sought in a tender offer.  The reason couldn’t be worse: due to the lack of available financing at satisfactory terms as a result of current conditions in the credit markets.  This could all be part of the tie-in and part of the reason that no one wanted Orbitz Worldwide (NYSE:OWW) shares last week, and you know the Travelzoo (NASDAQ:TZOO) weakness in its outlook probably didn’t help matters here.

Expedia’s amended "Dutch tender" offering is to purchase up to 25,000,000 shares of its common stock at a price per share not less than $27.50 and not greater than $30.00.  This now represents approximately 9% of the number of shares of common stock currently outstanding and approximately 8% fully diluted. The tender offer is set to expire on August 8, 2007. This is a huge disappointment.

Shares rocketed much more than 10% back in June after the company said it was buying back up to $3.5 Billion in stock.  This was to represent 116.7 million shares at the time of the announcement, so 25 million now is going to be deemed paltry in comparison.  This even has Priceline.com (NASDAQ:PCLN) shares indicated down almost 1% on thin volume in early indications.  Shares of Expedia are down 6% at $27.50 in pre-market indications. 

Jon C. Ogg
July 23, 2007

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

Despite Massive Share Sales Plan, Ellison Still Rules Oracle (ORCL)

There was interesting story this weekend, and that is a massive planned share sale out of chief Oracle Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle Corp. (NASDAQ:ORCL).  The numbers look massive with a more than $2 Billion stake potentially being sold over the next 9 months under a Rule 10b5-1 Plan.  While the numbers are massive on Main Street, this repesents less than 10% of his holdings and slightly under 4 days trading volume.  This won’t make any change to Ellison as one of America’s most entrenched corporate leaders we gave earlier in the year.

Under this Rule 10b5-1 Plan, Larry Ellison may sell up to 100 million shares over a period of approximately nine months and gift up to an additional 2 million shares to the Ellison Medical Foundation. Some shares are options set to expire in July 2008.  Upon completion of the 10b5-1 Plan (assuming all are sold), Ellison will beneficially own approximately 1.173 billion shares (or about 22.7%) of Oracle’s outstanding stock.

This cool $2 Billion, officially listed as part of his individual long-term strategy for asset diversification and liquidity, ought to buy a few more super-yachts and super-sonic jets. The transactions under this plan will start no earlier than September2007 following the first quarter earnings release and will bedisclosed publicly through Form 144 and Form 4 filings with the SEC.

Jon C. Ogg
July 23, 2007

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

Pre-Market Stock News (July 23, 2007)

(ABN) ABN AMRO’s bid from Barclays was raised to 67.5 Billion Euros ($93+ Billion U.S.) to try to close the deal.
(ACI) Arch Coal $0.26 EPS vs $0.27 est.; guidance appears soft for next quarter.
(ANX) Adventrx Pharma announced positive inhibition of HIV-1 in preclinical tests when combining ANX-201 compound with inhibitors in testing.
(ARRO) Arrow International being acquired by Teleflex (TFX) for $45.50 per share.
(ASTE) Astec $0.83 EPS vs $0.74 estimate.
(EEFT Euronet $0.29 EPS vs $0.30e; sees Q3 under plan as well.
(GE) General Electric hosts analyst meeting Monday.
(GGBM) Gigbeam wins 24 WiFiber module order in Western U.S.
(GSF) Global SantaFe merging with Transocean (RIG) with partial cash going out to shareholders in recapitalization.
(HAL) Halliburton $0.63 EPS vs $0.56 est.; Revenues $3.7 Billion versus $3.5 B estimate.
(JRN) Journal Communications $0.19 EPS vs $0.20 est; posted slight gains in pulishing/broadcasting revenues (+1.3%) and advertising (+1.8%) for first six months in 2007 vs 2006.
(MRK) Merck $0.82 EPS vs $0.72 est.; slighly raised 2007 guidance; Revenues $6.1 Billion vs. $5.8 Billion estimate; shares indicated up $1.00 or more.
(OPSW) Opsware is being acquired by Hewlett Packard for $14.25 per share.
(PETS) PetMed Express $0.24 EPS vs $0.23 est.
(PVTB) Private Bancorp $0.40 EPS vs $0.39e.
(QTWW) Quantum Fuel to supply transportable hydrogen refueling stations to General Motors
(RIG) Transocean merging with Global SantaFe (GSF) with partial cash going out to shareholders in recapitalization.
(SCHL) Scholastic said 8.3 million Harry Potter series finale books sold on Saturday.
(SGP) Schering Plough $0.41 EPS vs $0.35 estimate.
(TASR) Taser $0.06 EPS vs $0.04e; revenues $25.6 million vs. $21.25M estimate.
(URI) United Rentals being acquired for $34.50 per share in a Cerberus buyout.
(WFT) Weatherford $0.68 EPS vs $0.70 est.;noted slowdown in Canada as reason for miss and drop sequentially.
(WMT) Wal-Mart said it is dropping prices on more than 16,000 products across stores, with a back-to-school focus.

Jon C. Ogg
July 23, 2007

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

Hewlett-Packard (HPQ): A 38% Premium For Opsware (OPSW), Too Much?

Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) will buy data center automation software company Opsware (OPSW) for $14.25 a share and combine it with its enterprise IT management software unit. According to the larger company: "the acquisition of Opsware is intended to extend HP Software’s capabilities to automate the entire data center."
Opsware closed at $10.28 on the last full day of trading. That number is near its 52-week high.
Opsware Inc.’s net revenue for its first quarter ended April 30, 2007 totaled $28.3 million, up 29% from the same quarter last year and exceeding the company’s previously guided range. 
The price is very high. Opsware trades at 10x revenue before the buy-out offer and has a forward P/E of 38.. HP’s trades for 1.3x revenue and has a forward P/E of 15.5.
The big tech company is going to have to squeeze a ton of growth out of Opsware to justify the price.
Douglas A. McIntyre

Transocean (RIG) And GlobalSanteFe (GSF) Merge

Transocean Inc.(RIG) and GlobalSantaFe Corporation (GSF) today announced that their boards of directors have unanimously approved a definitive agreement for a merger of equals.

According to the companies the aggregate total cash paid to both companies’ shareholders will be $15 billion, which will be funded through a bridge loan due one year after closing. Transocean has received a commitment letter from Goldman, Sachs & Co. and Lehman Brothers Inc. providing for this financing. Transocean expects to refinance the bridge loan with a mix of bank loans and debt securities.

Based upon closing prices for each company’s ordinary shares as of July 20, 2007, the estimated enterprise value of the combined company would be approximately $53 billion. The combined company, to be known as Transocean Inc., will retain principal offices in Houston and trade on the New York Stock Exchange with the symbol RIG.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Pre-Market Analyst Calls (July 23, 2007)

AFL raised to Overweight at Lehman.
AMGN raised to Hold at Citigroup.
ASBC cut to Underweight at Lehman.
BUD raised to Hold at Citigroup.
CKR started as Neutral at JPMorgan.
EMN raised to Buy at Citigroup.
EOG cut to Sell at Citigroup.
FPL raised to Outperform at Baird.
FTO started as Neutral at UBS.
GAP cut to Sector Perform at CIBC.
HBC raised to Overweight at Lehman.
IMAX raised to Buy at Merriman Curhan Ford.
KWK cut to Sell at Citigroup.
NVT raised to Buy at UBS.
PGN raised to Outperform at Baird.
PNY raised to Outperform at Baird.
SUN started as Neutral at UBS.
TAC cut to Sector Perform at CIBC.
TSO started as Neutral at UBS.
VLO started as Buy at UBS.
VMSI cut to Sector Perform at CIBC.
WNR started as Reduce at UBS.

Jon C. Ogg
July 23, 2007

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

Merck (MRK) Perks

Merck’s (MRK) sales for the last quarter were $6.1 billion, an increase of 6% from the second quarter of 2006. Net income for the second quarter of 2007 was $1,676.4 million, compared to $1,499.3 million in the same quarter a year ago.

The company raised full-year 2007 guidance and now anticipates EPS range of $3.00 to $3.10.

Worldwide sales will be driven by the Company’s major products, including the impact of new studies and indications. Sales forecasts for those products for 2007 are as follows:
                                        WORLDWIDEPRODUCT                                 2007 SALES-----------------------------------     ------------------------------SINGULAIR (Respiratory)                 $4.0 to $4.3 billionCOZAAR/HYZAAR (Hypertension)            $3.2 to $3.5 billionVaccines (as recorded by Merck &Co., Inc.)                             $3.9 to $4.3 billionFOSAMAX (Osteoporosis)                  $2.8 to $3.1 billionZOCOR (Cholesterol modifying)           $0.6 to $0.9 billionOther reported products*                $5.6 to $5.9 billion
Douglas A McIntyre