Daily Archives: July 18, 2008

52-Week Low Club (AYE, AXL, APL, AUO, CHB, CMLS, GAP, MAC, MIR, RRI, SGLP, SWY, VRTU)

52_week_low_image_2Its Friday, and despite a fairly stable market today there were of course many 52-week lows.  Some look like a mid-city explosion from news, and some are just the normal selling.  As a reminder, some of these stocks are not under the 52-week lows at the time this published but these would have hit prior 52-week lows or traded under them on an intra-day basis. 

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Posted on: July 18, 2008 – 2:29 pm in HI/LOW, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Will Apple Avoid Tech Earnings Woes? (AAPL)

Iphone_logoInvestors holding Apple Inc. (NASDAQ; AAPL) and traders alike are all eagerly going to be waiting for Monday’s (July 21) earnings release after the close.  We would warn you ahead that First Call estimates are likely to see some updates on the actual estimates themselves and on the target prices analysts have for forecasting now that we have seen a disappointment from both Google and from Microsoft.

First Call has estimates currently pegged at $1.08 EPS and $7.36 Billion in revenues.  As far as next quarter (also its fiscal year end), we show estimates as $1.24 EPS on $8.31 Billion in revenues. 

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Posted on: July 18, 2008 – 2:00 pm in Consumer Electronics, Earnings, Technology Companies,

Economy Too Bad For Funerals? (SCI, CSV, STEI)

If you follow the death care industry, the one name you probably know is Service Corp. International (NYSE: SCI).  There is a second tier small player that many haven’t heard of named Carriage Services Inc. (NYSE: CSV).  We noticed this one today in our screening of 52-week lows, although it barely went under that prior $6.10 52-week level and has since come back up to $6.25.

As of December 31, 2007, Carriage Services operated 139 funeral homes in 25 states and 32 cemeteries in 11 states; and the company is based in Houston, Texas (that’s important, read on).  As of a week ago it is operating under a new CFO.  A month before that the company instituted a $5 million share buyback.  But if you look at the chart and action you might think that suddenly people are too financially strapped to die or are at least too strapped to pay for a decent funeral when they do die.  This has fallen from late-2007 highs of over $11.00 and shares are now challenging 52-week lows and with one more day like today would be back under $6.00.

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Posted on: July 18, 2008 – 1:11 pm in Economy, HI/LOW, , ,

Sirius/XM Nearing Final Hurdles (SIRI, XMSR)

Sirius_logoXm_logoSirius Satellite Radio Inc. (NASDAQ: SIRI) and XM Satellite Radio Inc. (NASDAQ: XMSR) are both trading higher pre-market on reports that the last FCC commissioner will back the merger if the companies agree to additional conditions.  FCC Chairman Kevin Martin has already supported the merger despite all of the congressional special interests and the RIAA objections to this competing against terrestrial radio.

Apparently the newest requests are for a 6-year pricing cap and a request for one-quarter of the programming to be made available for minority or public interests.  Interestingly enough, we noted over at VOLUME SPIKE (VSInvestor.com) that there was very unusual options activity around this situation.

After this merger has been in the pending file for 18 months, we’d imagine that both satellite companies will capitulate to these demands even if they sue to break them because of "pricing pressure" in an inflationary environment or over lack of feasibility on the additional programming side.

Sirius shares are up over 3% at $2.17 on over 350,000 shares and XM shares are up almost 5% at $8.85 on 44,000 shares in pre-market trading.

Jon C. Ogg
July 18, 2008

Posted on: July 18, 2008 – 8:00 am in Entertainment, Media, Mergers and Buy Outs, Satellite, ,

Top Pre-Market Analyst Upgrades (AVR, BLL, CE, ETR, HCP, HR, MRK, PTNR, PTEN, UAUA, VSE)

These are not all of the upgrades or positive analyst calls seen this morning but these are some of the top calls seen this Friday morning:

  • Aventine Renewable (NYSE: AVR) Raised to Buy from Neutral at UBS.
  • Ball Corp (NYSE: BLL) Raised to Buy from Neutral at Goldman Sachs.
  • Celanese (NYSE: CE) Started as Outperform at Credit Suisse.
  • Entergy (NYSE: ETR) Raised to Buy from Hold at Jefferies.
  • HCP (NYSE: HCP) Raised To Buy From Neutral By Goldman Sachs.
  • Healthcare Realty Trust (NYSE: HR) Started as Outperform at Wachovia.
  • Merck (NYSE: MRK) Started as Buy at Citigroup.
  • Partner Communications (NASDAQ: PTNR) Started as Outperform at RBC Capital.
  • Patterson-UTI Energy (NASDAQ: PTEN) Raised to Outperform at Credit Suisse.
  • UAL (NASDAQ: UAUA) Raised to Overweight from Underweight at JPMorgan.
  • Yum! Brands (NYSE: YUM) Raised to Outperform from Market Perform at Wachovia.
  • VeraSun Energy (NYSE: VSE) Raised to Buy from Neutral at UBS.

Jon C. Ogg
July 18, 2008

Posted on: July 18, 2008 – 6:48 am in Analyst Calls, , , , , , , , , , ,

Top Analyst Downgrades (BBY, KO, EBAY, GILD, IGT, MAC, SUN, TSO, VRTU)

These are not all of the Downgrades or negative analyst calls seen this morning but these are some of the top calls seen this Friday morning:

  • Best Buy (NYSE: BBY) Cut to Outperform from Top Pick at RBC Capital.
  • Coca Cola (NYSE: KO) removed from Goldman Sachs Conviction Buy List.
  • EBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) Cut to Neutral from Buy at Goldman Sachs.
  • Gilead Sciences (NASDAQ: GILD) Cut to Hold from Buy at Jefferies.
  • International Game Technology (NYSE: IGT) Cut to Hold from Buy at Citigroup; Cut to Perform at Oppenheimer.
  • Macerich (NYSE: MAC) Cut To Neutral From Buy By Goldman Sachs
  • Sunoco (NYSE: SUN) and Tesoro (NYSE: TSO) Cut to Market Perform from Outperform at Bernstein.
  • Virtusa (NASDAQ: VRTU) Cut to Neutral from Overweight at JPMorgan.

Jon C. Ogg
July 18, 2008

Posted on: July 18, 2008 – 6:46 am in Analyst Calls, , , , , , , , ,

Emerging Markets May Be Kings Of Inflation

The IMF is worried to death that emerging markets are facing substantial inflation and are doing nothing about it. If the agency is right, some of the most promising economies in the world could badly cripple themselves by pursing growth at any cost.

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Posted on: July 18, 2008 – 6:07 am in Economy

Freddie Mac’s (FRE) New Stock Sales, A Knife In Shareholder Hearts

Freddie_mac_logoIt now appears that Freddie Mac (FRE) will raise about $10 billion. The only trouble with that is that its current market cap is only $6 billion. For shareholders, the news is almost as bad as a government takeover.

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Posted on: July 18, 2008 – 5:40 am in Financial Stocks, ,

Merrill Lynch (MER) And Citigroup (C) Move To The Bottom Tier Of US Financial Firms

Citigroup_logo_2At the start of the year, many Wall St. analysts and much of the media give the impression that the current financial crisis would pull down all large US banks and brokerages. With the recovery, the fortunes of all would improve. It has not turned out that way. As the second quarter earnings season progresses, it is clear that there are three tiers of big financial companies. Based on Merrill Lynch’s (MER) earnings, it has been pushed down to the bottom level. Citgroup’s (C) $2.5 billion loss and threats of much worse results have pulled it under as well.

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Posted on: July 18, 2008 – 5:20 am in Financial Stocks, , , , , , , , ,

Google (GOOG): Once Goliath, Now Ordinary

Google_imageGoogle’s (GOOG) earnings disappointed Wall St. and pushed the stock down nearly 8%, but the message from the numbers is more profound than a little shortfall. Google’s net was up 35%. The firm reported revenue of $5.37 billion for the quarter, an increase of 39% compared to the second quarter of 2007. From 2004 and 2005, Yahoo!’s (YHOO) revenue rose 47%. That is not so long ago.

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Posted on: July 18, 2008 – 4:45 am in Earnings, , , ,

Starbucks Releases List Of 600 Stores To Be Shut, A Tombstone For Employees

Starbucks_logo_2Starbucks (SBUX) founder and CEO Howard Schultz had his company release the list of 600 stores that coffee chain would close. It is a tombstone for the 12,000 company employees that Starbucks will push out of work and a monument to the firm’s arrogance.

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Posted on: July 18, 2008 – 4:04 am in Food,

Media Digest 7/18/2008 Reuters, WSJ, NYTimes, FT, Bloomberg

According to Reuters, analysts looking at results from Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), and IBM (IBM) are cautiously optimistic about upcoming tech earnings.

Reuters writes that Merrill Lynch (MER) posted a loss of $4.9 billion and sold its share of Bloomberg.

Reuters writes that Yahoo! (YHOO) may go back to News Corp (NWS) for a potential deal if it cannot make progress with Time Warner’s (TWX) AOL.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Freddie Mac (FRE) may try to raise $10 billion..

The Wall Street Journal writes that AMD’s (AMD) CEO was replace after several quarters of bad results. The company also said it lost $1.2 billion in the last quarter.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Starbucks (SBUX) sent out the list of the 600 stores it would close.

The Wall Street Journal writes that the EU brought anti-trust charges against Intel (INTC).

The Wall Street Journal reports that Wachovia (WB) has been hit by a auction rate probe.

The FT reports that the IMF says emerging economies must make the fight against inflation their "top
priority."

Douglas A. McIntyre

Posted on: July 18, 2008 – 2:44 am in Press Digest, , , , , , , , , , ,