Fannie Mae (FNM) Barron’s says common shareholders may be wiped out by new capital. Drops to $6.08 from 52-week high of $70.57.
Harman International (HAR) Earnings miss. Drops to $33.61 from 52-week high of $115.38.
Tronox (TRX) Broker downgrade. Sells down to $.65 from 52-week high of $11.56.
Douglas A. McIntyre
If there wasn’t enough already wrong with the FDA drug approval process, diabetes drug Byetta, created for patients by Elli Lilly (LLY) and Amylin Pharmaceuticals (AMLN) is killing more people. The news follows an earlier report of problems which was put out by the agency in October.
GM (GM) will celebrate its 100th birthday by offering incentives and losing more money on each vehicle.
According to Reuters, "GM had scheduled briefings for U.S. dealers, representing all of its brands from the mass-market Chevrolet to the upscale Cadillac."
The shares are off over 3% on the news. Happy Birthday.
Douglas A. McIntyre
VSInvestor reports on several stocks moving on heavy volume today.
At the top of the list are Freddie Mac (FRE) and Fannie Mae (FNM) dropping on comments from Barron’s that the common shareholders in the company could be wiped out.
The largest mining company in the world, BHP Billiton (NYSE:BHP) today reported revenues of $59.47 billion and EPS of $2.75 for its full 2008 fiscal year ended June 30th. Analysts were expecting revenues of $52.02 billion and EPS of $3.70. BHP also declared an annual dividend of $0.70/share, up from $0.47/share in the previous fiscal year.
Newspaper stocks are way off as the industry struggles with falling circulation and advertising revenue. But one company, Gatehouse (GHS), stands out as being much worse off that the rest.
Today, research firm Morningstar wrote, "We think GateHouse’s equity is worthless. The company has been an aggressive acquirer, which resulted in an unmanageable debt load."
Even with oil prices well off of recent highs, these are still very much considered as above historical highs. The large integrated oil companies have experienced either declines or very small gains in value over the last year, and these are generally well off of their 52-week highs. Exxon Mobil (NYSE:XOM) has declined almost 4.5% over the last year but is down about 20% from its 52-week highs. BP (NYSE:BP) has fallen over 25% from its highs; Royal Dutch Shell (NYSE:RDS.A) is down 22% from its highs. ConocoPhillips (NYSE:COP) is off about 18% from its highs and Chevron (NYSE:CVX) is off almost 20% from its highs. Among smaller companies, the losses from recent highs are even worse. Apache (NYSE:APA) is down more than 28% from recent highs, Marathon (NYSE:MRO) is down about 28% from its recent highs%, and PetroCanada (NYSE:PCZ) is down about 31% from its recent highs. As you will see below, there are many reasons for these exaggerated drops and perhaps some underlying opportunities as well.
There was a release this morning showing that a Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC, or blank check company) called Alyst Acquisition Corp. (AMEX: AYA) has signed an agreement to acquire all of the shares of China Networks Media Ltd., a British Virgin Islands company which owns and is in the process of acquiring television station operating assets in the People’s Republic of China.
Lowe’s Companies Inc. (NYSE: LOW) managed to actually beat earnings projections and managed a gain in revenues. The hardware and home improvement store posted earnings per share with a drop of 4.5% to $0.64 EPS, while revenues rose 2.4% to $14.5 Billion. Both the top-line and bottom-line earnings were above First Call estimates of $0.56 EPS and $14.1 Billion in sales.
Corel Corporation may be under some pressure Monday as we get closer to the open this Monday morning. The software maker’s acquisition offer from Corel Holdings L.P., which owns 69% of Corel, has been withdrawn.
This buyout was for the 31% of the company that Corel Holdings, L.P. did not already own. There were already some questions as to whether or not this buyout was 1) going to become effective and 2) actually get approved by shareholders. The buyout for the remaining shares was going to be at $11.00 per share, yet shares closed at $9.44 on Friday and the 52-week trading range is $6.94 to $13.95.
These are not all of the early calls from analysts out there, but these are some of the calls that may impact the prices of these shares this summer Monday morning:
"From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe." Churchill, 1946
For some time the conventional wisdom has been that the largest economic and military threat the to US is an expanding China. It has the world’s largest standing army and is the fastest growing large economy in the world.
China has been viewed as unmatched as a rival to the West.
Every day we cover many stocks at the end of the day which are hitting new 52-week lows. Very rarely do we include ETF’s or closed-end mutual funds in the coverage on that list. But what is becoming amazing is the daily reckoning we are witnessing where the 52-week low list is dominated by emerging market instruments that trade on the NYSE or AMEX as ETF’s and as closed-end funds. The list is becoming so staggering that you wonder just were the money really is going. The US dollar is getting some strength finally, but the markets in emerging markets are getting pounded daily in these instruments.
The bald man with the 1950s tie who runs the National Hurricane Center gets to go on The Weather Channel a dozen times a year. Those appearances are triggered by the appearance of storms that might hit Florida or the Gulf Coast.
The latest storm, call Fay, is about to run up toward Tampa and then into the Gulf of Mexico. Oil companies are already pulling people off of their deep water rigs and the price of oil is taking a little jump in response.
It is hard to imagine that Fay could cause much of an interruption in production, but the news does show how fragile the underpinnings of falling crude prices are.
On Sunday, T. Boone Pickens issued a press release stating that he had met with Senator Obama in Reno, Nevada to discuss his energy plans. This follows the statement he issued Friday stating that he had met with Senator McCain in Aspen, Colorado to discuss his energy plans.
Pickens calls this non-partisan in both meetings and stressed that the Pickens movement hopes to get legislation passed in the first 100 days of the next administration.
In the current age of financial pessimism, Morgan Stanley (MS) does not want to be bested. In a show of unusual courage, its president is predicting that the world of Wall St. will get progressively worse and not emerge from the current crisis for more than a year.
The financial crisis will probably not end until next year or even 2010, Germany’s Handelsblatt newspaper quoted Morgan Stanley (MS) co-President Walid Chammah as saying.
Lehman (LEH) has just begun to defile itself. After several quarters of losses and promises of better days, the press is reporting that the brokerage will have negative earnings for the most recent period that will total at least $1.8 billion.
Big earnings deficits are almost always followed by a need to raise money.
With nearly all of the top investment banks in a precarious financial position as a result of horrific investments in bad debt, banks have no shortage of things to worry about.
But the Financial Times reports that "battered US financial groups will have to refinance billions of dollars in maturing debt over the coming months, a move likely to push banks’ funding costs higher and curb their profitability."
General Motors (GM) has decided that it will not serve as a sponsor for the the 2009 Academy Awards, ending a long relationship that included $13.5 million in ad spending for this February’s broadcast and, in some years, the company paid extra to be the exclusive auto sponsor for the event. GM has also provided cars to escort celebrities from the ceremony to the after-parties.
A GM spokesman told The Wall Street Journal that "It is a great property, but it simply didn’t fit into our plans for 2009
According to Reuters, analysts expect Lehman (LEH) to have a $1.8 billion loss.
Reuters writes that the US is likely to recapitalize Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac (FRE).
Reuters reports that GM (GM) will not buy advertising on this year’s Oscars in a move to save money.
| Today’s top tickerspy Indexes | |
| Home Furnishing R... | +14.1% |
| Ethanol and Biofu... | +5.1% |
| Electronics Retai... | +2.1% |
| Diabetes Stocks | +2.0% |
| Memory Chip Stock... | +2.0% |
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