24/7 Wall St. » COGT

Should Cogent Trade Like a Bidding War is Coming? (COGT, MMM, ID)

Administrator — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 13:39:40 +0000

Cogent, Inc. (NASDAQ: COGT) is the newest of the M&A stocks in an environment where premiums and share prices are sometimes being taken for granted. 3M Co. (NYSE: MMM) offered to acquire the biometric identification solutions provider for $10.50 per share. The value of the merger is $943 million on the surface, but it is really a $430 million acquisition if you choose the ‘net of cash’ value. The stock is trading at a premium to its acquisition price, and we are curious to know if this should really have a premium.

The board of directors of Cogent Systems is unanimously recommending that Cogent shareholders accept the offer and Cogent’s CEO & founder Ming Hsieh (and certain entities affiliated with him) have agreed to tender their shares to the offer. Hsieh owns more than 15.2 million shares.

What needs to be considered is that L-1 Identity Solutions Inc. (NYSE: ID) is also in an auction process that is said to be in the final stages. Both companies are in the field of security solutions and they have overlaps in biometric security. L-1 has a market cap of $838 million and its $9.00 share price compares to a 52-week range of $5.67 to $10.42.

You can expect that one of the law firms (or more than one) will get a press release out early this morning that they are “investigating to see if shareholders are getting top dollar or not” as you now see on almost every single merger announcement.

Cogent’s 52-week trading range is $7.96 to $11.33. For whatever it is worth, this was a $25.00 stock five years ago. Shares opened up about 21% at $10.79 this morning, some $0.29 higher than the $10.50 bid price.

With so many new M&A targets out there, it is not really a surprise at all that there is a climate where unrelated buyouts will trade as though they all have multiple acquirers interested in their operations. That is true for some and is not the case for others. We’ll be keeping en eye on the price of Cogent, which is again at a merger-arb premium rather than a discount. We’d also keep a watch out on L-1 as well.

JON C. OGG

Filed under: Business Services, Conglomerates, Infrastructure, Mergers and Buy Outs Tagged: COGT, ID, MMM

Top Active Trader Alerts (CRNT, COGT, DGIT, GENZ, HPQ, QLGC, SPWRA)

Administrator — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 12:56:07 +0000

Active traders and day traders have a decent slew of companies to choose from this late-August Monday. We are seeing large trading activity in shares of Ceragon Networks Ltd. (NASDAQ: CRNT), Cogent Inc. (NASDAQ: COGT), DG FastChannel, Inc. (NASDAQ: DGIT), Genzyme Corporation (NASDAQ: GENZ), Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE: HPQ), QLogic Corp. (NASDAQ: QLGC), and SunPower Corporation (NASDAQ: SPWRA).

Ceragon Networks Ltd. (NASDAQ: CRNT) is trading higher after receiving orders for mobile backhaul equipment from one of India’s “leading operators.” Shares are trading up 6.7% at $8.30 on about 20,000 shares versus a 52-week range of $6.85 to $13.29.

Cogent Inc. (NASDAQ: COGT) is up 21.7% at $10.85 after 3M announced it was acquiring the fingerprint identification system provider at %10.50 per share. Cogent has has unanimously recommended that the shareholders of Cogent Systems accept the offer, and there is a premium to the deal now here as in others because of a hope that other buyers will emerge.

DG FastChannel, Inc. (NASDAQ: DGIT) tried to fend off a warnings for Q3 and for 2010 by announcing a $30 million share buyback plan. That did not work as the stock is down 17.7% at $20.20 versus a 52-week range of $16.39 to $44.19.

Genzyme Corporation (NASDAQ: GENZ) is trading higher after it rejected the $69.00 offer from Sanofi Aventis. Investors are hoping for a bidding war as shares are up around $70.50 on more than 1 million shares.

Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE: HPQ) is trading higher after announcing an additional share buyback plan of up to $10 billion. Some will be accelerated: “we expect to repurchase at least $3 billion worth of our shares in our fiscal fourth quarter at current price levels.” Shares are now up 2.8% at $39.06 on over 500,000 shares.

QLogic Corp. (NASDAQ: QLGC) announced board approval of a stock buyback of up to $200 million additional in stock versus a $1.6 billion market cap. Shares are up about 1% at $14.96 versus a 52-week range of $14.30 to $22.40.

SunPower Corporation (NASDAQ: SPWRA) is trading higher after a rally last week on fresh headlines that its solar technology was selected for multiple U.S. federal government facilities. Shares were up more earlier, but on last look the stock was up 2% at $11.45 on 12,000 shares.

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JON C. OGG

Filed under: Pre-Market Activity, Trading Alert Tagged: COGT, CRNT, DGIT, GENZ, HPQ, QLGC, SPWRA

Cramer’s 2010 Counterterrorism Stock Picks (ASEI, OSIS, FLIR, COGT, NICE)

247wallst — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 23:45:23 +0000

It seems every market pundit has their outlook picks for 2010, and Jim Cramer is no different. Last night was Cramer’s “Energy Shortage Stock Picks for 2010″ and on CNBC’s MAD MONEY tonight Cramer gave his featured stock picks in the Homeland Security and anti-terrorism sector. Considering the recent failed plane bombing attempt on Christmas Day, this sector enjoyed much interest last week. Cramer believes the real counter-terrorism stocks that are not the garbage speculative names are American Science & Engineering Inc. (NASDAQ: ASEI), OSI Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: OSIS), FLIR Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: FLIR), and Cogent, Inc. (NASDAQ: COGT). His big feature and review stock for charts and fundamentals was in Nice Systems Ltd. (NASDAQ: NICE). Cramer did note that some of these are still up very big from lows and might need to be bought on pullbacks.

American Science & Engineering Inc. (NASDAQ: ASEI) scans for bombs and weapons in transportation systems and it has a $150 million order backlog with a market ten-times the company’s current revenues. OSI Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: OSIS) is a new pick from Cramer and it rose from $22.02 before Christmas and went briefly over $28.00 to new recent highs before pulling back. Its 52-week trading range is $11.01 to $28.49. This one screens people and can detect materials inside clothing.

FLIR Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: FLIR) is Cramer’s pick in security and surveillance that protects major companies and government facilities. FLIR closed at $32.72 and its 52-week trading range is $18.81 to $33.35. Cogent, Inc. (NASDAQ: COGT) is Cramer’s pick for fingerprint and palm scanning technology. Cogent closed at $10.28 and its 52-week trading range is $7.96 to $12.92.

Cramer also featured and reviewed Nice Systems Ltd. (NASDAQ: NICE) over tracking terrorism suspects based upon software for abnormal behavior for counter-terrorism and over phone surveillance. He then reviewed the chart. The chart looks solid to him because of higher highs and higher lows. The Real Money writer believes it has room to run up to $40.00 and is not really extended on its chart. The November lows came on very high volume that shook out the sellers. Cramer believes this one has been ignored entirely by the terrorism stocks and can have camera to camera reviewing. It has $500 million, about $8.00 per share, is looking for more acquisitions to make, and trades cheap at 18-times earnings.

I would like to personally invite you to join in with the thousands of readers on our free daily email distribution list from 24/7 Wall St. to hear about ongoing day trader and options trader alerts, analyst upgrades and downgrades, stock and market rumors, Buffett and guru investor news, M&A and IPOs, and more.

Cramer’s “Energy Shortage Stock Picks for 2010″ can be found here.

Jon C. Ogg
January 5, 2010

Posted in Analyst Calls, Cramer, Cult Stock, Defense, Transports Tagged: ASEI, COGT, FLIR, NICE, OSIS

Top Pre-Market Analyst Downgrades (ABX, COGT, GMR, GG, NEM, NAT, PRU, UBS, X, WOR)

247wallst — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 07:54:03 +0000

These are some of the top pre-market analyst downgrades we have seen early this Monday morning:

Barrick (ABX) Cut to Neutral at UBS.
Cogent (COGT) Cut to Neutral at JPMorgan.
General Maritime (GMR) Cut to Neutral at JPMorgan.
Goldcorp (GG) Cut to Neutral at UBS.
Newmont (NEM) Cut to Neutral at UBS.
Nordic American Tanker (NAT) Cut to Underweight at JPMorgan.
Prudential (PRU) Cut to Marekt Perform at FBR.
UBS (UBS) Cut to Neutral at Merrill Lynch.
US Steel (X) Cut to Hold at Deutsche Bank.
Worthington (WOR) Cut to Underperform at CIBC.

Jon C. Ogg
December 22, 2008

Posted in Analyst Calls Tagged: ABX, COGT, GG, GMR, NAT, NEM, PRU, UBS, WOR, X

Top 10 Early Bird Analyst Upgrades & Downgrades (COGT, PSUN, RMD, NCTY, SAFM, UTHR, ARB, CS, CTRP, SUN)

247wallst — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 07:11:25 +0000

These are ten of the early bird analyst upgrades and downgrades we are seeing from Wall Street this Wednesday morning:

Cogent Inc. (COGT) Raised to Overweight at JPMorgan.
Pacific Sunwear (PSUN) Raised to Neutral from Sell at UBS.
ResMed (RMD) Started as Buy at Jefferies.
The9 Ltd. (NCTY) Raised to Hold from Sell at Citigroup.
Sanderson Farms (SAFM) Raised to neutral from Underweight at JPMorgan.
United Therapeutics (UTHR) Raised to Neutral from Sell at Piper Jaffray.
Arbitron (ARB) Cut to Neutral at JPMorgan.
Credit Suisse (CS) Cut to Sell from Neutral at UBS.
CTrip.com (CTRP) Cut to Sell from Buy at Citigroup; price target cut to $30.40 at Credit Suisse.
Sunoco (SUN) Cut to Sell from Hold at Deutsche Bank.

Jon C. Ogg
November 19, 2008

Posted in Analyst Calls Tagged: ARB, COGT, CS, CTRP, NCTY, PSUN, RMD, SAFM, SUN, UTHR