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Palm, Inc. (NASDAQ: PALM) has sort of already fallen from grace despite all the hype behind the Palm Pre. Throw in that Pixi too. Discounting is trumping what may be weaker sales. It turns out that Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) is offering the Palm Pre for Sprint for a mere $79.99. Sprint Nextel (NYSE: S) has it offered direct at $149.99 price after discounts and rebates at its site. Sprint Nextel is also selling the Palm Pixi for $99.99, but the Palm Pixi is now for sale for $24.99 at Wal-Mart Stores (NYSE: WMT). We confirmed all these prices on the websites, and this is going to confirm tough times for Palm and its finances.
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Posts for Ticker ‘AMZN’
The Palm Margin Squeeze (PALM, S, AMZN, WMT)
Black Friday Gimmicks & Desperation, A Win For Consumers (WMT, BBY, COST, TGT, KSS, GPS, M, JWN, MA, AMZN)
We are right at a week away from the highly awaited Black Friday for 2009’s holiday and Christmas season. As you likely know, this is THE day that retailers look forward to all year and critically depend upon as an anchor to how each retailer’s full year earnings results turn out. You may already be tired of Christmas ads and the holidays haven’t even arrived yet. With over 10% unemployment, a recession-end that doesn’t feel like a recession-end, a very tight discretionary spending budget, and a general lack of consumer confidence, it is no surprise at all that the focus for the Holiday Season in 2009 is one of deals and thrift.
These are not in any particular order, but the promotions have been reviewed at Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT), Best Buy Co. (NYSE: BBY), Costco Wholesale Corporation (NASDAQ: COST), Target Corp. (NYSE: TGT), Kohl’s Corp. (NYSE: KSS), Gap Inc. (NYSE: GPS), Macy’s, Inc. (NYSE: M), and Nordstrom Inc. (NYSE: JWN). There is also already promotion between MasterCard Incorporated (NYSE: MA) and Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN). Admittedly, this is just a sampling of major outlets.
What is amazing is just how much of the deal-making is already out before the holiday season starts as retailers key off of each other. It is almost impossible to avoid thinking how such a promotional Christmas and Holiday Season in 2009 is going to add pressure to margins at almost all the first-line retailers.
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24/7 Wall St. TV: Sony e-Reader To Ship Late Adding To Company Woes
The management at Sony (NYSE:SNE) looks more and more like “The Gang That Couldn’t Shot Straight.” Its TV screen business is losing money. Most months, sales of the PS3 fall behind those of the Microsoft (NYSE:MSFT) Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii.
Sony appears to have a promising new product in its Daily Edition Reader, the company’s e-reader offering. The device puts it into competition with market leader Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) and its popular Kindle, but Sony still have the consumer electronics brand power to give it a reasonable change to be a force in the e-book industry.
It would be nice if Sony could get its product out for the holidays. Read More
Amazon (AMZN) And MasterCard (MA) Turn To Social Networks For Holidays
The use of social networks to sell products and services gets more complex by the day. The latest scheme to tap into the swarms of people who congregate at Facebook is a program from MasterCard (NYSE:MA) and Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN).
The promotion for the credit card and e-commerce companies will allow consumers to go to a new website. The site will allow people who want to buy gifts for their social network “friends” to find their personal characteristics like age and sex and pick presents accordingly. Read More
Target (TGT) Promotes $3 Appliances
DVDs and e-books that sell for under $10 is one thing. Appliances that sell for $3 is another. Target (NYSE:TGT) is offering toasters, coffee makers, and slow roasters at $3 each, according to data from GotADeal.com. It is a sign that discounting to pull in retail customers is getting out of hand.
A number of retail industry analysts have questioned whether Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT), Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), and Target (NYSE:TGT) can make money on their DVD promotions. It is just as likely that they choose to lose money on these items to draw people into stores or to their online sites.. They hope that those customers will buy more expensive products that have reasonable profit margins. It is a risk, but given the revenues of the three companies, not a big one. Read More
Tech Giants Now Hold ~$265 Billion Cash To Spend (HPQ, COMS, INTC, AMD, MSFT, CSCO, AAPL, GOOG, ORCL, JAVA, QCOM, EMC, YHOO, DELL, AMZN, EBAY, ONT, BRCD, JDSU, STAR, VMW)
You have already seen the Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) buyout of 3Com Corporation (NASDAQ: COMS). But this week before that deal was announced we covered how mergers in the technology sector have been very slow to develop over the scale in which we and others think is possible for the sector. After the Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC) settlement with Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE: AMD), the tally of cash that is now estimated would be an implied $265 billion that is available for the tech giants in our 24/7 Wall St. Real-Time 500 to make acquisitions.
The giant cash balances are held by Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT), Cisco Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO), Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL), Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG), and Oracle Corp. (NASDAQ: ORCL), assuming nothing happens with Sun Microsystems Inc. (NASDAQ: JAVA). But players like QUALCOMM Inc. (NASDAQ: QCOM), EMC Corporation (NYSE: EMC), International Business Machines (NYSE: IBM), Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL), Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO), Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN), and eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY) are either all sitting with large amounts of cash or will be very soon.
We have broken out these technology, IT, software, and Internet companies by the cash amount they hold or what they have in a soon-to-be cash balance. Of course only a fraction of this cash will be used for mergers. But there is also a ton of room here for dividends and of course the share buybacks.
Amazon (AMZN) Launches Free Kindle Software For PC
By Douglas A. McIntyre
There is a new product on the home page of Amazon.com (NYSE:AMZN). PC users can now download a free version of Kindle software which allows Kindle users to synchronize the libraries on their Kindle e-readers with their PCs.
The move is a curious one for Amazon, which sells the Kindle for $259. Why give away any related software at all? Amazon has not said, but it is easy to guess.
Major Stocks That Have Doubled And Their Future Prospects (F)(AMZN)(AAPL)(WFMI)(MOT)
By Douglas A. McIntyre
The S&P 500 index is so far having a fine year, up a bit more than 20%. But several big-company stocks in the index have doubled, or better, over that time. Among the best-performers are some of America’s most well-known companies.
Here’s a look at 10 of those and their prospects of advancing further — or sliding back into the large pack of equities that have had only modest advances during the current bull market (all prices are as of the close on Nov. 9).
Ford (NYSE:F) was left for dead when it traded at $1 last November. The market thought it would share the sorry fate of its rivals General Motors and Chrysler, and that common shareholders would get nothing.
Tech Titans Still Have $269 Billion Cash For Deals (MSFT, CSCO, AAPL, GOOG, INTC, HPQ, QCOM, EMC, VMW, YHOO, DELL, ORCL, JAVA, AMZN, EBAY)
The recovery is on and mergers are happening, yet the technology sector has been slow to make deals. Despite some deals already having taken place from the technology giants and that $260 billion cash balance which was there in the middle of last quarter is even larger now. The tally for cash by our count is now right around $269 billion. We looked through the top market caps of technology companies in our 24/7 Wall St. Real-Time 500 and this list is expanded now that some issues have been resolved in all the companies. The stocks in this group are Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT), Cisco Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO), Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL), Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG), Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC), Oracle Corp. (NASDAQ: ORCL), Sun Microsystems Inc. (NASDAQ: JAVA), Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE: HPQ), QUALCOMM Inc. (NASDAQ: QCOM), EMC Corporation (NYSE: EMC), International Business Machines (NYSE: IBM), Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL), Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO), Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN), and eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY).
These few tech companies with the $269 billion cash that could be deployed for mergers, acquisitions, or the good old dividends are also listed before tallying up credit lines, factoring, debt sales, and other creative financing methods. We have listed the suppositions and counting methods for each one to illustrate how much is available at each company.
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Top 10 Analyst Upgrades, Downgrades, Initiations (AMZN, ANSS, BEBE, CAH, CNQ, CROX, GCO, PEET, O, SBUX)
These are this morning’s top 10 analyst upgrades, downgrades, and initiations seen from Wall Street research calls:
Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) Raised to Outperform at Bernstein and target raised from $125 to $160.
ANSYS (NASDAQ: ANSS) Raised to Buy at Jefferies.
bebe Stores (NASDAQ: BEBE) Cut to Hold at Brean Murray.
Cardinal Health (NYSE: CAH) Cut to Hold at Jefferies.
Canadian Natural Resources (NYSE: CNQ) Raised to Overweight at Barclays.
Crocs Inc. (NASDAQ: CROX) Reiterated Overweight at Piper Jaffray.
Genesco (NYSE: GCO) Raised to Outperform at R.W. Baird.
Peet’s Coffee & Tea (NASDAQ: PEET) Started as Buy at Janney.
Realty Income (NYSE: O) Raised to Outperform at Credit Suisse.
Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX) Reiterated Overweight at Piper Jaffray and raised 2010 targets.
You can join our open email distribution list to get updates on top analyst upgrades and downgrades, top day trader alerts, IPO’s, secondary offerings, Warren Buffett and other guru activity, M&A and more.
JON C. OGG
Wal-Mart (WMT) Drives Price Wars To DVDs
Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT) is not satisfied challenging rivals like Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Target (NYSE:TGT) in the e-book and toy businesses. Its program to take the lion’s share of the modest number of consumers likely to come out during the end-of-recession shopping season has been extended to DVDs.
Walmart.com has started to offer DVDs which are likely to be hot sellers for only $9.99. Most have retail prices of $25 to $30, so the world’s largest retailer is not likely to be making money on them. It is part of Wal-Mart’s strategy to get people in the “door” and then sell them other items. Read More
Media Digest 11/6/2009 Reuters, WSJ, NYTimes, FT, Bloomberg
Reuters: The Wall St. insider trading probe lead to another 14 arrests.
Reuters: Fannie Mae (NYSE:FNM) lost $19 billion and asked Treasury for money.
Reuters: GM is readying its plans for Opel as some of its workers went on strike.
Reuters: The pay czar says the jury is still out on reforms. Read More
Tech M&A King Cisco (CSCO) Pushes Into The Living Room
Cisco (NASDAQ:CSCO) may control most of the global router and enterprise video conferencing business, but it wants a bigger footprint in home video delivery. Silicon Valley’s biggest M&A machine has snapped up China set-top box company DVN for $44.5 million.
Cisco already has a large set-top business in the US, but the Chinese market has 160 million cable subscribers and that makes it the most promising market for set-top sales in the world. Read More
Wal-Mart (WMT): More Toy Price Cuts And Big City Dreams
Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT) becomes more aggressive in soliciting new customers and undercutting rivals as each week passes. It has the balance sheet and retail locations to do those things.
The world’s largest retailer recently cut the prices of 100 toys below $10 and brought the price that it charges for popular e-books under $10 to take market share from Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN).
Wal-Mart knows that this holiday retail season will probably be very weak because of unemployment and lack of access to credit for many consumers, so it is not finished offering bargains to bring in customers. Read More
Small Books Stores, Hurt By Amazon, Try To Strike Back
Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), Target (NYSE:TGT), and Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT) are apparently sharply limiting the number of books customers can buy under their programs to sell popular titles at discount prices. Book publishers have already claimed that the three companies are trying to monopolized book distribution.
The Wall Street Journal surmises that the reasons for the restriction on the number of books any one customer can buy has been set at two or three is that small book stores are buying the books and then marketing them up in price for their customers. While that may be true, the entrepreneur with one or two stores cannot offer the discounts that Amazon can. The huge e-commerce company can afford to lose money on the titles because visitors to it website may but other items. The book shop owner cannot afford to adopt the same tactic. Read More
Media Digest (10/31/2009) Reuters, WSJ, NYTimes, FT, Bloomberg
Reuters: The US economy is stable but risks remain according to Geithner.
Reuters: JPMorgan (NYSE:JPM) raised concerns about Galleon in 2001.
Reuters: As many as five million Americans have been infected with H1N1.
Reuters: Sony (NYSE:SNE) posted a fourth straight quarterly loss. Read More
Top Day Trader Alerts (FITB, STI, CIT, AMZN, BCRX, LM)
This morning you are getting the broader summaries without links to VSInvestor.com because of an issue at the hosting and publishing side that has caused a temporary outage. Here are brief morning movers:
Fifth Third Bancorp (NASDAQ: FITB) and SunTrust Banks, Inc. (NYSE: STI) are both getting hit this morning on an analyst downgrade by Dick Bove. Rochdale Securities has downgraded the bank to Sell from an already cautious Neutral rating. At 8:20 AM EST we have seen STI shares down over 2.5% at $20.45 on about 10,000 shares and FITB is down over 4% at $9.92 on 65,000 shares. STI trades about 9.7 million shares per day and and FITB trades about 22 million shares per day.
CIT Group, Inc. (NYSE: CIT) is trading up this morning on news that could ultimately be bad for shareholders. CIT has amended its debt offering terms under a packaged bankruptcy reorganization. CIT is up 3.5% at $1.18 on over 400,000 shares of stock at 8:26 AM EST. As a reminder, CIT was under fire on Friday by a Carl Icahn open letter to bondholders calling that the value of the bonds could be Par (100 cents on the dollar). CIT trades close to 90 million shares per day and where this one closes today is anyone’s guess as of now.
Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) rose almost $25.00 on Friday on over 58 million shares when you include the pre-open and after-hours trading volume. Average volume here is about 7 million shares. And this morning at 8:30 AM EST we have shares up another 1.8% at $120.60 on right at 300,000 shares. This will mark new 52-week highs as the high on Friday was $119.65. Bezos always wanted to build a rocket ship, and his stock is acting like one.
BioCryst Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: BCRX) is surging on H1N1 news this morning. The company’s intravenous experimental drug called peramivir received an “emergency use authorization” by the FDA as a swine flu treatment from the Food and Drug Administration as a swine flu treatment in hospitals for thoise with or suspected of having swine flu.
Legg Mason Inc. (NYSE: LM) is indicated higher. Billionaire investor Nelson Peltz will join the asset management firm’s board after his investment firm has now taken a 4.3% stake in the company. This investment is via Peltz’s Trian investment group. 3.6% at $33.05, but volume is still very thin as this is a listed stock under an NYSE specialist.
You can join our open email distribution list to get updates on top analyst upgrades and downgrades, top day trader alerts, IPO’s, secondary offerings, Warren Buffett and other guru activity, M&A and more.
Jon C. Ogg
October 26, 2009
Top Day Trader Alerts (AMZN, BRCM, FRE, MSFT, SPWRA, SYNA)
These are this Friday morning’s top day trader and active trader alert stocks. We have more detailed data on price, volume, and historical data with links through to each story at VSInvestor.com:
Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) blew through earnings estimates and is actually challenging all-time highs not seen since the 1998 to 2000 tech bubble.
Broadcom Corp. (NASDAQ: BRCM) is being left out of the rally as guidance was disappointing.
Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE) is actually up marginally this morning despite an SEC Filing this morning showing that its mortgage delinquencies continued to rise in September.
Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) is up almost 10% and hitting 52-week highs.
SunPower Corporation (NASDAQ: SPWRA) is feeling the downside of the solar trade and down almost 10%.
Synaptics Inc. (NASDAQ: SYNA) is up sharply and creating a serious short squeeze.
You can join our open email distribution list to get updates on top analyst upgrades and downgrades, top day trader alerts, IPO’s, secondary offerings, Warren Buffett and other guru activity, M&A and more.
JON C. OGG
OCTOBER 22, 2009
Top Analyst Upgrades, Downgrades, Initiations (AMZN, CB, CXW, GSK, ITRI, LEAP, LM, PNC, POT, VLO)
These are this Friday morning’s top 10 analyst upgrades, downgrades, and initiations we have seen from Wall Street’s research calls:
Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) Raised to Outperform at FBR Capital (new target $130); Raised to Overweight at Barclays; Raised to Buy at Jefferies; Raised to Buy at Janney Montgomery.
Chubb (NYSE: CB) Cut to Hold at Stifel Nicolaus.
Corrections Corp (NYSE: CXW) Started as Buy at Sun Trust Robinson Humphrey
GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE: GSK) Cut to Hold at Jefferies.
Itron (NASDAQ: ITRI) Raised to Buy at Deutsche Bank.
Leap Wireless (NASDAQ: LEAP) Started as Neutral at Credit Suisse.
Legg Mason (NYSE: LM) Raised to Neutral at Credit Suisse. Credit Suisse
PNC Financial Services (NYSE: PNC) Raised to Overweight at Wells Fargo.
Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan, Inc. (NYSE: POT) Cut to Sector Perform at CIBC; targets raised to $125 at RBC and raised to $135 at Canaccord.
Valero Energy (NYSE: VLO) Raised to Overweight at Barclays.
You can join our open email distribution list to get updates on top analyst upgrades and downgrades, top day trader alerts, IPO’s, secondary offerings, Warren Buffett and other guru activity, M&A and more.
JON C. OGG
OCTOBER 23, 2009
Book Sellers Ask Justice Department To Review Amazon (AMZN) And Wal-Mart (WMT) Pricing
The American Booksellers Association wants to know the motivation of Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT), Target (NYSE:TGT), and Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) for selling popular books online for under $10. The industry group has asked The Justice Department to investigate what it believes “constitute illegal predatory pricing that is damaging to the book industry and is harmful to consumers.” The association sent a letter to the Antitrust Division of the department detailing its grievances.
At the core of the dispute between publishers and the large online retailers is that major titles are being sold below the cost that Amazon and its rivals have to pay to book companies. The American Booksellers Association says that this is the equivalent of a conspiracy “to win control of the market for hardcover bestsellers.” Read More
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