RSS Updates
Email Updates
Petroleo Brasileiro S.A. (NYSE: PBR), or Petrobras, raised $1 billion in a new note offering this morning for its Petrobras International Finance Co. Or did it? We originally had this listed as being an offering of about $500 million earlier, yet now the offering may be as much as $1.2 billion.
Read More
Daily Archives: July 1, 2009
Does Petrobras Need More Capital? (PBR)
A Gross Exagerration of Future Deflation
Pimco’s Bill Gross on Wednesday released yet another self-serving, but intelligently
written diatribe that suggests personal consumption may be constrained for a generation,
and all asset classes other than bonds and dividend-paying stocks will remain risky.
The managing director of one of the world’s largest and best-known fixed income management houses somewhat predictably railed against giddy consumer excesses of the past. But in an argument that went beyond hyperbole, he explained why the hangover could last for a generation, at minimum. Read More
Rite Aid’s Turnaround Looking More Likely (RAD)
Rite Aid Corporation (NYSE: RAD) may have just made the last or one of the last announcements that saved the reputation as far as it being a stock that investors would stay interested in. The drug store chain announced that it has received notice from the New York Stock Exchange that Rite Aid is now back in compliance with the exchange’s share price listing requirement now that its closing share price on June 30, 2009 and its average closing share price for the prior 30-days of trading were both above $1.00. This will keep the company from pursuing that awful proposed reverse stock split. These are not the only positive things happening for the company and for the stock.
Read More
Yahoo! (YHOO) Entertertainment Site Hammers Competition, TMZ.com Should Pass
Yahoo!’s (YHOO) OMG! entertainment site was the most visited destination in the category in May, at least according to comScore, and the competition was not even close. June numbers could change considerably as TMZ, part of Time Warner’s (TWX) AOL, broke the Michael Jackson story.
Yahoo! has had its share of problems recently, the most troubling of which is the success of Microsoft (MSFT) search engine Bing!
But, Yahoo!’s ability to drive traffic to its own content properties is still extremely impressive and is likely to be the cornerstone of any turnaround of the company. Read More
Car Sales: Ford (F) Rules June
Ford’s (F) June sales were down “only” 11% to 154,873. That means, based on drops in volume at other large manufacturers, that Ford picked up market share during the month. Ford Fusion sales were up 26%.
Sales of Nissan light trucks and cars fell 23% to 58,298. Toyota (TM) lost 33% to 131,654 and Chrysler was off 43% to 68,297. GM sales were off 33% to 176,571. Cadillac sales fell 40%.
Annualized sales of vehicles are currently running just below 10 million. While this is a recovery from levels in the first five months, it is still unlikely that any of the three domestic car companies can post consistent profits until sales come up another 10% to 15%. The car business still has a long way to go.
Douglas A. McIntyre
Karmazin Contract Extended, With Raise and Massive Options (SIRI)
SIRIUS XM Radio Inc. (NASDAQ: SIRI) has extended its contract with CEO Mel Karmazin. Today, June 30, 2009, the company entered into an amendment to the amended employment agreement, dated November 18, 2004, with Karmazin.
Read More
4th of July Gift: Oshkosh Wins At Expense of Others (OSK, NAV, FRPT, GD)
Oshkosh Corp. (NYSE: OSK) shares are rising strongly today while most of its peers are falling, after the company won a massive government contract that market participants are seeing as the sole prize in a billion-dollar sweepstakes. The ATV vehicle win came at the expense of Navistar International Corp. (NYSE: NAV), which has a joint venture between small-cap Force Protection Inc. (Nasdaq: FRPT) and General Dynamics Corp. (NYSE: GD). Despite the major share price erosion seen today in the losers, there might still be an outside chance that Oshkosh is not the sole winner.
Read More
Crude Inventories Mixed For Holiday Weekend Demand (USO, OIL)
The weekly oil inventories data came out of the U.S. Department of Energy at 10:30 AM EST this morning. Crude Oil was already much higher on worries that draw-downs were taking their toll on supply. At 10:21 NYMEX WTI Crude was trading up $1.86 per barrel at at $71.75 and the United States Oil (NYSE: USO) was up 2% at $38.80. The iPath S&P GSCI Crude Oil Total Return Index ETN (OIL) was up 2.3% at $25.60. The data came out as follows:
ISM, Construction, and Home Sales… Pulling In Opposition
Any time you have three economic reports hitting at once, you have a risk for confusion or for diverging data. That is the case today as the Institute for Supply Management gave the June ISM Manufacturing data, while we saw pending home sales data and new construction spending data mixed for May.
Read More
Novel ETF Launch: Islamic Investment Strategy (JVS)
If you said that there are exchange-traded funds for just about everything, that statement is getting closer and closer to accurate than ever. A new ETF in America is being launched: Javelin Exchange Traded Funds (“JETS”) is launching Dow Jones Islamic Market International Index Fund (NYSE: JVS). This ETF aims to adhere to centuries-old Islamic beliefs about investing and finance.
Read More
Day Trader Alerts (IMMR, DROOY, GOLD, AU, AUY, SPPI, AMAG, UBS, CS, OSK, FRPT, NAV, MYGN)
We have provided links through on our day trading alerts page this morning. Each stock is seeing active trading right before the open and brief explanations and analysis are offered at VSInvestor.com:
- Immersion Corp. (Nasdaq: IMMR) is getting whacked down on an investigation into previous revenue transactions in its medical business.
- Speculative gold stocks DROOY, GOLD, AU, AUY were up on active interest with commodities.
- Spectrum Pharmaceuticals Inc. (Nasdaq: SPPI) Inc. shares were indicated lower after the company raised capital from institutional investors.
- AMAG Pharmaceuticals Inc. (Nasdaq: AMAG) is trading higher after the FDA approved the company’s Feraheme drug as an iron replacement therapy.
- Watch UBS AG (NYSE: UBS) and Credit Suisse (NYSE: CS) on Swiss-US tax issues may be closer to abating.
- Premarket Alert: Watch defense contractors on contract news (OSK, FRPT, GD, NAV)…
- Myriad Genetics (NASDAQ: MYGN) is getting destroyed on its deep revenue warning.
You can check each morning at VSInvestor.com for earlier pre-market indications in stocks on the move you might not have seen.
Jon C. Ogg
Dividend Surprise At MFA (MFA)
MFA Financial, Inc. (NYSE: MFA) is a surprise on the dividend front this morning. The company is a REIT that invests in mortgage-backed securities, and while that sounds as though it has all the qualifications for problems the company is actually raising its dividend again. This time by 14%.
This may seem like a small raise, but you have to consider the ills of the sector. In December, the company cut its dividend by a penny to $0.21. It raised its dividend in April to $0.22. And the new rate today is $0.25. At the end of 2007, this rate was only $0.10 per quarter.
Read More
LDK Solar Chalks Up A Win In Italy (LDK)
LDK Solar Co., Ltd. (NYSE: LDK) has signed a new agreement with SAEM Srl, a primary system integrator within the PV sector, to build five one-megawatt PV plants in the Apulia region of Italy. Construction will start in July and should be completed by November of this year. Under the pact, LDK Solar will supply wafers for the PV project and SAEM will be responsible for the engineering, procurement, and construction services and system integration.
Read More
ADP Fails To Cure Unemployment Fears
The ADP national employment report for June is often considered a prelude to the tone of the following day’s real unemployment report from the Labor Department. The ADP report for June is out at -473,000. This is down from -485,000 as revised in May. This is also worse than the estimates being les than -400,000 on an unofficial basis.
Read More
Top Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades (AWK, BEAT, CHKP, IACI, MVL, MYGN, NVO, SYMC, WERN)
These are the top pre-market analyst upgrades and downgrades this Wednesday morning in early trading.
- American Water Works (AWK) Started as Buy at Brean Murray.
- CardioNet (BEAT) Cut to Hold at Citigroup; Cut to Hold at boutique firm Roth.
- Checkpoint Software (CHKP) Cut to Neutral at JPMorgan.
- IAC/Interactive (IACI) Started as Outperform at Oppenheimer.
- Marvel Entertainment (MVL) Raised to Overweight at JPMorgan.
- Myriad Genetics (MYGN) down on downgrades from RBC, Oppenheimer, Citigroup, Morgan Joseph, and more.
- Novo Nordisk (NVO) Raised to Buy at Goldman Sachs.
- Symantec (SYMC) Started as Outperform at JMP Securities.
- Werner Enterprises (WERN) Raised to Overweight at JPMorgan.
After today, we’d expect analyst coverage to start getting this until at least next Tuesday because of the shortened week. We have already seen the effects of fewer participants this week, particularly after such a stellar quarter that just ended yesterday.
Jon C. Ogg
July 1, 2009
AIG’s Futile Reverse Split To Nowhere (AIG)
American International Group Inc. (NYSE: AIG) is under pressure. This morning is the effective date of a 1 for 20 reverse split. Our closing bell price was $1.16 yesterday, and that would imply a $23.30 share price this morning. Just one problem. The “20-factor” is not even close as the very early trading indications are down by almost one-third and trading around the $15.00 handle in early trading.
LogMeIn Scores Top of Range (LOGM, INTC)
Investors and traders alike will want to pay attention to the LogMeIn Inc. (NASDAQ: LOGM) IPO today. We were expecting a premium pricing and possibly even a higher number of shares, but the price was at the top of the $14 to $16 range (at $16.00) for almost 6.67 million shares. As a reminder, Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC) is a backer of this company and owns a small stake. JPMorgan and Barclays were the lead underwriters. It is our opinion that this IPO would have or could have either commanded a higher price or a higher shares sale had the IPO not come on a summer holiday week. We gave a full synopsis on this one last night with financial details, pros and cons, and more. Its market cap based on the 21.4 million fully diluted shares outstanding as of the pricing is implied at $342.4 million.
Jon C. Ogg
July 1, 2009
GM May Have To Sell China Unit To Get Taxpayers Back Their Money
The Administration says it wants a “quick exit” from its investment in GM. The taxpayers should not have to own a US auto company any longer than they have to. The problem is that, by most estimates, GM would have to have a market value of $50 billion for the government to recoup its money. That is not likely to happen while GM waits for the US vehicle market to recover.
The federal government could get a great deal of its cash back if GM sold its operations in China. Read More
As Viacom’s (VIA) Paramount Looks For Partner It May Be Bought Out
The DVD business is bad. Video-on-demand, available on most cable systems, and internet streaming of premium content have cut into one of the largest profit centers in Hollywood.
Viacom’s (VIA) Paramount studio operation is looking for a partner for its home entertainment unit, which produces and sells DVDs, in the hope of cutting costs. The most logical marriage of that business would be to another studio which faces that same problem with eroding margins. Read More
-
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% 
-
-
- MARKET SNAPSHOT: Investors May Turn Defensive As Fizz Leaves Stocks
- Obama: "Nothing More Important" Than US Economic Recovery
- India Regulator Fixes Up to INR19 As Fee To Switch Mobile Operator
- Kumho Asiana To Select Preferred Bidder For Daewoo Engineering Monday -Report
- Korea Exports Up 28.8% On Year In Nov 1-20 Period;Surplus At $960 Million
- Zambia Konkola Copper Mines To Discipline Rioting Workers-Company
-
-
- paidContent - Nielsen Biz Selling Print, Online But Not Until December; Lachlan Murdoch Considering Investing
- paidContent - ESPN.com's Bill Simmons Gets A Twitter Time Out, Sort Of
- paidContent - Finally, MySpace Music Licenses 'Fifth Label' Merlin; Reins in Fiercest Critic
- paidContent - Why Sony's Planned Music Store Won't Start Out As A Serious iTunes Challenger
- paidContent - paidContent Quick Hits 11.20.09
- paidContent - SEC Watch: New DirecTV CEO Could Make $35.5 Million (And Then Some)
-
©2009 24/7 Wall St.
Powered by WordPress.com VIP
Designed by SlipFire
