Reuters: Thain regrets nothing he did at Merrill Lynch and during its merger with Bank of America (NYSE:BAC).
Reuters: Trump put his support to the bondholders of his casino business.
FT: A Chinese court ruled against Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) in an intellectual property case. Read More
Assured Guaranty Ltd. (NYSE: AGO) over 32% to a yearly high of $28.14 after the company posted earnings of $0.44 per share, beating analysts estimates.
Semitool Inc (NASDAQ: SMTL) rose over 30% to a yearly high of $11.00 after Applied Materials Inc (NASDAQ: AMAT) agreed to buy the company for $11.00 per share, or $364 million.
Sina Corp (NASDAQ: SINA) rose over 10% today to a yearly high of $47.95 after the Chinese internet portal beat earnings and projected margin improvements.
Tween Brands Inc (NYSE: TWB) rose over 11% today to a yearly high o $10.16 after the company posted a profite of $0.58 per share, beating analyst estimates.
Garrett W. McIntyre
These are this Tuesday’s top day trader and active trader alerts with more details and analysis linked through to each stock over at VSInvestor.com:
Netlist Inc. (NLST) is seeing small profit taking after a 500% run in the last week.
SunPower Corporation (NASDAQ: SPWRA) (NASDAQ: SPWRB) is down 13% on accounting irregularities and two downgrades.
NeurogesX, Inc. (NASDAQ: NGSX) is up 11% but off last night’s highs after an FDA pain patch approval.
Pacific Sunwear (NASDAQ: PSUN) is down 20% on wider losses and poor guidance.
Semitool, Inc. (NASDAQ: SMTL) is up 30% on what has to be record trading volume on the Applied Materials Inc. (NASDAQ: AMAT) acquisition.
You can join our open email distribution list to hear more news on top day trading alerts, key analyst upgrades and downgrades, Buffett and other investment gurus, IPOs, secondary offerings, private equity, mergers, and more.
JON C. OGG
Semitool, Inc. (NASDAQ: SMTL) has become the perfect fit for Applied Materials, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMAT). Applied has decided to acquire the maker of multi-chamber single-wafer and batch wet chemical processing equipment used in the fabrication of semiconductor devices. The company is being acquired by Applied Materials for $11.00 per share in cash. The $364 million deal is small enough that it should not bleed too much from Applied Materials’ shares as its market cap is some $17 billion and now that it has earnings behind it.
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Reuters: China is the key stop on Obama’s tour of Asia.
Reuters: South Korea’s businesses may start to feel more pressure from China competitors..
Reuters: Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ) bought 3Com (NYSE:COM) for $3.1 billion.
Reuters: Lou Dobbs left CNN (NYSE:TWX) Read More
Applied Materials Inc. (NASDAQ: AMAT) is on deck for earnings this afternoon right after the market closes. The chip equipment giant, and relatively new solar player, is the king of its sector to most traders and investors and will potentially have an impact on all the chip equipment stocks in the sector. Estimates from Thomson Reuters are $0.03 EPS and $1.32 billion in revenues for its October quarter, which is also its year-end with estimates of -$0.14 EPS and $4.80 billion in revenues.
Applied Materials does represent about 13.55% of the Semiconductor HOLDRs (NYSE: SMH) ETF, but only represents about 5% of the Ultra Semiconductor ProShares (NYSE: USD) ETF. We will be looking to its fiscal-2010 comments more than this last quarter.
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Earnings season has wound down now with over 85% of the S&P 500 Index having reported. Still, there are some key companies posting their quarterly results and some companies were screened out of this list which are still actively traded or widely held stocks. Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS), Energy Conversion Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ: ENER), Priceline.com Inc. (NASDAQ: PCLN) and Sequenom Inc. (NASDAQ: SQNM) are on deck Monday. Also this week are earnings from Tyco International Ltd. (NYSE: TYC), Applied Materials Inc. (NASDAQ: AMAT), Macy’s, Inc. (NYSE: M), are Nordstrom Inc. (NYSE: JWN). Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) and Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS) are our two DJIA components reporting this week.
We have included Thomson Reuters consensus estimates and included performance and other important color where applicable. We have shown the share performance since the March 9 close that traders mark as the official end date of the bloody bear market. One issue to consider is that we used the performance since June 30 to keep consistency for our prior previews even though some of the quarter-ends this coming week are technically August 31.
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Applied Materials, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMAT) appears to not be slowing down on its solar ambitions, or at least not as much as we might have all guessed about six months ago when new expansions were being canned and when oil was at far lower prices. This morning came an Applied Materials announcement that the company had opened the world’s largest non-governmental advanced solar research and demonstration facility in Xi’an, China. We have not compared this to other large solar players, but the size of the labs and office buildings was listed as covering more than 400,000 square feet. The site also contains an entire Applied SunFab™ thin film manufacturing line and a complete crystalline silicon pilot process, which are configured to closely simulate customer fabrication environments.
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Updated throughout the day.
Updated 3.14 PM EST: STIC (NASDAQ:STIC) dropping on rumors that Sun (NASDAQ:JAVA) database applications may hurt STIC sales (Barron’s)
Updated 3.11 PM EST: Level 3 (NASDAQ:LVLT) is surging on heavy volume on buy-out rumors. (various)
Updated 12:30 PM EST: ITT options trading is active on trader talk of takeover rumors. Shares are up 3% at $53.02.
Updated 10.40 AM EST “Capmark Financial Group Inc., the commercial real estate company created through a 2006 leveraged buyout of certain GMAC assets, is preparing to file for bankruptcy possibly by the end of next week.” (Reuters)
Update 8.15 AM EST Scripps Interactive (NYSE:SNI) may be a buy-out target (PaidContent)
The four biggest US banks by assets may have to take on $55 billion of mortgage-collection contracts after marking them up by $11 billion in the second quarter, casting a shadow over earnings. (NYPost) Bank of America (NYSE:BAC), JPMorgan (NYSE:JPM), Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC), and Citigroup (NYSE:C).
CIT (NYSE:CIT) may be closer to a bankruptcy (Reuters)
Energy Conversion Devices (NASDAQ:ENER) may be a buy-out target with Applied Materials (NASDAQ:AMAT) as the possible bidder.
Users of Apples (NASDAQ:AAPL) Snow Leopard software have been losing personal data. (CNET)
GE (NYSE:GE) may eventually get rid of its entire stake in NBC Universal and Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA) may have to spend billions of dollars to effect that. (AP)
Macau may curb growth of the gambling industry which would hurt prospects for Las Vegas Sands (NYSE:LVS) and Wynn (NASDAQ:WYNN) (Reuters)
You can join our open email distribution list to get updates each morning on analyst upgrades and downgrades, top day trader alerts, IPO’s and secondary offerings, Warren Buffett and other guru activity, M&A and more.
Douglas A. McIntyre
Shares in MEMC Electronic Materials Inc. (NYSE:WFR) have been downgraded from ‘Buy’ to ‘Hold’ by Citigroup (NYSE:C). MEMC makes crystalline polysilicon wafers used in some photovoltaic solar cells, and the market appears to be oversupplied for both this year and next.
Prices for polysilicon could fall by as much as 50%, which would really squeeze MEMC’s revenues and margins.
Another wafer maker, Applied Materials Inc. (NASDAQ:AMAT), got an upgrade from Citigroup, from ‘Hold’ to ‘Buy’. Applied also makes crystalline polysilicon wafers, but its thin-film products could easily pick up the slack if the market for polysilicon takes the expected tumble.
And while alternative energy shares were hot last week, primarily due to the IPO of A123 Systems Inc. (NYSE:AONE), things have cooled a bit today. Even A123 is down nearly 3% in early trading today.
Nearly all the solar players are moving downward this morning. MEMC is off about 3.5% to around $16.69, and First Solar, Inc. (NASDAQ:FSLR) is off nearly 3.75% to $149.15. The big winner so far is Applied Materials, which is up more than 3.25% to $13.53.
Paul Ausick
There are many things that help solar power and orders for the sector, but arguably higher energy prices and tax incentives or subsidies probably dwarf the overall economic situation. There seems to be a steady series of ups followed by more downs, and you can blame part on the economy and on energy prices. First Solar Inc. (NASDAQ: FSLR), Energy Conversion Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ: ENER), Applied Materials Inc. (NASDAQ: AMAT), Canadian Solar Inc. (NASDAQ: CSIQ), Veeco Instruments Inc. (NASDAQ: VECO), Consolidated Edison Inc. (NYSE: ED), and MEMC Electronic Materials Inc. (NYSE: WFR) have all been in solar light with news.
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Applied Materials, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMAT) has reported results for its fiscal third quarter and its net sales were $1.13 billion. The non-GAAP net loss was $2 million, or break-even per share; the GAAP net loss was $55 million, or -$0.04 EPS. While this is showing sales down by one-third of last year, this is actually above estimates. Thomson Reuters had estimates pegged at -$0.08 non-GAAP EPS and $958+ million in revenues.
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We have some very unusual developments that came late in the week that we want you to keep on your watch lists for the coming week. We also included the big events coming down the pipe for next week. Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) is of ongoing interest. Genzyme Corp. (NASDAQ: GENZ), Spectrum Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: SPPI), Cubist Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: CBST), Dendreon Corp. (NASDAQ: DNDN), Opexa Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: OPXA) are all of special interest this next week. Other key issues to watch will be Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK-A), Fred’s Inc. (NASDAQ: FRED), GSI Commerce Inc. (NASDAQ: GSIC), Applied Materials Inc. (NASDAQ: AMAT), Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT), Leap Wireless (NASDAQ: LEAP), and MetroPCS (NYSE: PCS).
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These are ten of the top research calls from Wall Street’s analyst wave of daily upgrades, downgrades, and initiations this Friday morning:
Jon C. Ogg
June 5, 2009
Reuters: Global consumer confidence is improving.
Reuters: GM (GM) filed for Chapter 11 and expects a quick exit.
Reuters: Most US retailers probably had sales drop in May.
Reuters: China gave Geithner backing for the US programs to stimulate the economy. Read More
GT Solar International, Inc. (NASDAQ:SOLR) makes the equipment that other companies use to manufacture photovoltaic solar panels. Thus, when the solar panel makers are suffering, so is GT Solar. The company is suffering and expects to keep suffering.
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Applied Materials Inc. (NASDAQ: AMAT) gave nothing short of a crummy earnings report. It was actually a loss report. The chip equipment company posted a non-GAAP loss of $136 million, or -$0.10 EPS; and that is compared to a gain of $362 million last year. Revenues were $1.02 billion, and that is down from $2.15 billion for the same period last year.
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Solar industry consulting firm, Solarplaza, hosting a conference on “The Solar Future” on May 26th in Munich, Germany. Speakers from First Solar, Inc. (NASDAQ:FSLR), Suntech Power Holdings Co. Ltd. (NYSE:STP), and Q-Cells as well as industry analysts will discuss what is on the horizon for the solar industry. Other companies which are listed at the conference’s site here are Applied Materials (NASDAQ: AMAT), Akeena Solar, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKNS), and Trina Solar Ltd. (NYSE: TSL).
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Short sellers are not longer willing to gamble on a collapse in the share prices of America’s largest financial firms. Perhaps they think that the issue of nationalization has largely disappeared, the bank earnings may get better, or that the government’s program to strip them of toxic assets may work.
Based on short selling data as of April 15, the short interest in Wells Fargo (WFC) dropped 11% to 149.8 million shares. Read More
Microturbine maker Capstone Turbine Corporation (NASDAQ:CPST) has announced that it will eliminate an additional 22 professional positions as it continues to reduce expenses. Capstone fired 19 employees in February and canceled 16 open positions. The company said it will now employ 212 people, compared with 216 one year ago. Capstone’s microturbines are used in the construction of combined heat and power generation plants and hybrid electric vehicles.
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| Home Furnishing R... | +14.1% |
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