24/7 Wall St. » FMD

Companies Not On SEC Short Sale Ban, But Should Be

247wallst — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 13:07:21 +0000

Frankly, we think the ban on short sales is not the right way to run a free market. But it doesn’t matter what we think. These are the new rules, but they do not always make sense. Consider the stocks listed below that have many of the same issues as the financial companies but did not make the SEC’s list.

American Capital, Ltd. (NASDAQ: ACAS)
American Express (NYSE: AXP)
Capital One (NYSE: COF)
CIT Group (NYSE: CIT)
First Marblehead Corp. (NYSE: FMD)
General Electric (NYSE: GE)
General Motors (NYSE: GM)
HSBC Holdings PLC (NYSE: HBC)
thinkorswim Group Inc. (NASDAQ: SWIM)
VeriFone Holdings (NYSE: PAY)
WisdomTree Investments (OTC-WSDT)

There are many others that could be included. We refrained from going into detail for the case on each of these, but if you see the companies are tied into the financial markets it should be fairly evident why they were named. There are also some on this list which didn’t look likefinancial firms whose stocks were down because of targeted shortselling. That’s what makes a horse race. The SEC has referred to such companies as an "Included Financial Firm", and you can see the full list of them herefrom the SEC.

It is possible that some of these companies have already been added to the list. We just haven’t seen them.

Jon C. Ogg
September 19, 2008

Posted in Regulation, Short Interest Tagged: ACAS, AXP, CIT, COF, FMD, GE, GM, HBC, PAY, SWIM, WSDT

Top 10 Pre-Market Analyst Calls (AKAM, AEP, AAPL, BIDZ, CHINA, FMD, LVLT, PNRA, CRM, SPLS)

247wallst — Thu, 22 May 2008 06:40:19 +0000

These are ten of the analyst calls we are focusing on this Thursday morning:

Akamai Tech (NASDAQ: AKAM) cut to Sell at Goldman Sachs.
American Electric Power (NYSE: AEP) Cut to Hold From Buy at Jefferies.
Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) started as Outperform at Oppenheimer.
Bidz.com (NASDAQ: BIDZ) Started as Buy at Merriman Curhan Ford.
CDC (NASDAQ: CHINA) Cut to Neutral From Buy at Piper Jaffray.
First Marblehead (NYSE: FMD) Raised to Market Perform at FBR.
Level 3 Communications (NASDAQ: LVLT) Raised to Market Perform from Underperform at Wachovia.
Panera Bread (NASDAQ: PNRA) Started as Buy at Jefferies.
Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM) Raised to Buy From Hold at Jefferies.
Staples (NASDAQ: SPLS) Started as Buy at Citigroup.

Jon C. Ogg
May 22, 2008

The 52-Week Low Club (TWB)(FMD)(CHS)(PTRY)(GSAT)(VMED)

247wallst — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 15:02:50 +0000

Tween Brands (TWB) Cuts Q1 outlooks. Sells down to $17.85 from 52-week high of $49.

First Marblehead (FMD) Investment deal from Goldman Sachs looks weak. Down to $3.12 from 52-week high of $45.70.

Chico’s FAS (CHS) Weak same-store sales. Falls to $5.42 from 52-week high of $27.94.

Pantry (PTRY) Brokerage downgrade. Sells off to $11.20 from 52-week high of $48.96.

Globalstar (GSAT) Raising money through note offering. Down to $3.98 from 52-week high of $12.35.

Virgin Media (VMED) Large bond offering and downgrade. Slips to $12.37 from 52-week high of $30.

Douglas A. McIntyre

The 52-Week Low Club (MSO)(TUES)

247wallst — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 15:38:47 +0000

First Marblehead (FMD) Provides products for private education lending markets. Problems at SLM are not helping. Down to $11.69 from 52-week high of $57.56.

Martha Stewart Living (MSO) A lot of bad news in print advertising today. Shares move down to $9.38 from 52-week high of $23.21.

Tuesday Morning (TUES) Retailer warns on profits. Falls to $4.41 from 5-week high of $18.50.

Coherent (COHR) Company taken out of the S&P SmallCap 600. Drops to $24.85 from 52-week high of $33.38.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Which Financials May Slash Dividends Next? (WM, FMD, RWT, BAC, C, KEY, WB, SFI, CSE)

247wallst — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 12:33:44 +0000

Yesterday’s announcement that Washington Mutual (NYSE: WM) about a dividend slash, layoffs, exit of sub-prime, and a capital raise was greeted with far less than joy. 24/7 Wall St. has already warned not to trust the "dividend safety net" after Fannie Mae’s (NYSE: FNM) recent dividend cut even though many banks were out saying they want to protect their dividends and that the dividends were safe in October and November. Companies say one thing but frequently end up doing something else entirely different.

First Marblehead recently slashed its dividend in half, and it was yielding roughly 6.2% before its dividend cut. The Washington Mutual (NYSE: WM) dividend of 10% or more was far to big to trust, so we put together a list of other financial stocks with high stated dividends now that the shares are off so much from their highs. We are not saying all of these will cut their dividends and we’d even expect to formally declare "our dividend is safe" in response. But these are the higher yielding dividends from financial companies that 247WallSt.com thinks could be at risk if the environment continues:

Redwood Trust Inc. (NYSE: RWT) is a company whose dividend we could argue is at risk. Its president is retiring next year (but staying on the board), it just paid out a special $2.00 dividend, declared its regular dividend of $0.75 and announced 5 million shares for a stock buyback plan all in early November. But then early in December it sold $122 million of common stock to "fund investment activities." It invests in real estate loans and asset-backed securities. At $36.42, its 52-week trading range is $24.07 to $66.60.

Of the major money center and larger regional banks, there are many yields that are incredibly far ahead of treasury yields because of large drops in underlying share prices. Keep in mind that many of these dividends can be and likely will be maintained, but if banks need to save cash and get their dividends temporarily down to a more realistic percentage then this is one alternative. Here is a partial list: Citigroup (NYSE: C) 6.3%, Wachovia (NYSE: WB) 5.9%, Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) 5.6%, KeyCorp (NYSE: KEY) 5.8%

iStar Financial Inc. (NYSE: SFI) just last week declared its normal $0.87 quarterly dividend and that is north of a 10.6% yield to today’s $32.50 handle (year range $25.25 to $52.87). Capital Source (NYSE: CSE) has an even higher yield and it just recently completed the voting approvals for its $400+ million buyout of TierOne (NASDAQ: TONE). Because that deal is still pending regulatory closing and with a 13% yield, we just have a hard time believing this can be maintained indefinitely. At $18.78, its 52-week trading range is $14.05 to $28.55.

If you wonder why there are no brokerage firms listed here, it is because they are serial ‘under-dividend’ payers. They may pay out $1 Billion or $2 Billion in year-end bonuses, but a 2% yield is actually high for the brokerage firm stocks.

The truth is that there are dozens more that could be under review as well, and we wanted to keep this list limited to a few of the larger companies out there in banking and lending that have ties to lending, mortgages, ABS, and CDO’s. We do not expect that these will all cut their dividends. But we also know that sectors tend to cut and act in unison and are often all lumped together for better and for worse. The problems in these sectors are not merely isolated events.

With an FOMC decision to cut rates less than two hours away, we do not expect the financial stocks to trade normally as if there was nothing going on.

Jon C. Ogg
December 11, 2007

Jon Ogg can be reached at jonogg@247wallst.com; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.

The Week of Buyout Picks (April 9-13, 2007)

247wallst — Sat, 14 Apr 2007 07:55:00 +0000

Stock Tickers: GOOG, AQNT, VCLK, TFSM, MSFT, YHOO, TWX, SLM, NNI, FMD, MEDI,HAL, WHT, MEH, AAI, COT, IPS, PALM, DELL, NFI, BCE, AA, DOW, WYN, NDAQ,GFI, KR, ABN, BNI, DCX

This week was a huge week for the all of the buyout investors and speculators. There were more ongoing discussions being reported in the media than you could imagine. In a world of private equity gone wild, its hard to not be a bit cynical on the raw number of these. This is also after Google (GOOG) announced it would pay $3.1 Billion to acquire the master online advertising company DoubleClick.

Since the Google buyout of DoubleClick you might as well go ahead and throw these three into the hat: aQuantive (AQNT), ValueClick (VCLK), and 24/7 Real Media (TFSM). We addressed these back pre-market on April 2 when the DoubleClick buyout was starting to surface. Microsoft (MSFT), Yahoo! (YHOO), and even Time Warner’s (TWX) AOL unit may have to all look after these companies now that they let Google takeover DoubleClick.

Sallie Mae (SLM)….media saying it could go to private equity, of course. This even has Nelnet(NNI) and First Marblehead (FMD) up in hopes that if one student loancompany gets gobbled it means the others could too (or at least maybethe worst could be behind)…. who knows.

MedImmune (MEDI) exploring alternatives…."put itself up for sale."

Halliburton (HAL) for Weatherford (WFT)….WFT up 3% today as a result.

Midwest Air (MEH) snubbing Airtran (AAI) again, Airtran says the bid is high enough. Do you believe them?

Cott (COT) in talks with private equity firms on a Cadbury Beverage combination…..stock up 28%…."Welcome Back Cot….."

IPSCO (IPS)….up $20 since earlier in the week, company confirmed "talks that could lead to a sale," but not with whom…..

Palm (PALM) re-rumored as potential bait for Dell (DELL), these rumors just won’t die.

Novastar Financial (NFI) exploring options….a Takeunder for subprime slime?

Bell Canada (BCE) now under potential takeouts by the Ontario Teachers Pension Fund, so to speak.

Alcoa (AA) survived its earnings after a crummy history…..many think this one still gets gobbled…..

Dow Chemical (DOW) rumors of a private equity buyout just won’t die,even if they deny the rumor and fire 2 executives for "holdingunauthorized talks" with outside parties.

Wyndham Worldwide (WYN) could be the next buyout for its valueaccording to Cramer, as the only Cendant piece that hasn’t made thegrade.

Kroger (KR) denied it is interested in going private…..maybe WallStreet recalls that grocery store margins are low. The good news isthat you can now get a huge portion of the items you can at WholeFoods, without the "Whole Paycheck" price.

NASDAQ (NDAQ) held talks with the Oslo Stock Exchange. Supposedly nodeal is imminent, but right now if you are an exchange you arebasically takeover bait (hence, our BAIT SHOP).

ABN AMRO (ABN) still on deck…..who, what, when, where????? Barclays (BCS)?

Gold Fields Ltd. (GFI) went up on what may have been a fake "buyout rumor or interest" from a Mr. Pastorini…..can you say "Weird?"

Interest in rails after Warren Buffett disclosed stake in BurlingtonNorthern Santa Fe Corp (BNI)….looks like Buffett feels differentlyabout rail companies than airline companies.

Magna International confirmed its role in ongoing Chrysler talks, part of DaimlerChrysler (DCX).

Jon C. Ogg
April 14, 2007

Jon Ogg can be reached at jonogg@247wallst.com; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.

Rumor Friday (APR 13, 2007)

247wallst — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 12:54:40 +0000

Stock Tickers: SLM, NNI, FMD, MEDI, HAL, WHT, MEH, AAI, COT, IPS, PALM, DELL, NFI, BCE, AA, DOW, WYN, NDAQ, GFI, KR, ABN, BNI, DCX

What preceeds "Merger Monday"? The answer isn’t really Sunday. It’s "Rumor Friday," of course.

This week we even heard about private equity guys admitting the deals are getting crazy because of the financing available. By the size of this list, you can tell that there is no way under the sun that these can all occur. It’s truly an M&A world gone wild. Oh well, here is the list of stocks that have been rumored to be in merger discussions or potential targets this week, and there are probably a dozen or more others: