We are reviewing events or ongoing news in shares of Automatic Data Processing Inc. (NYSE: ADP), CSX Corporation (NYSE: CSX), Five Star Quality Care Inc. (NYSE: FVE), Gilead Sciences, Inc. (NASDAQ: GILD), Live Nation Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE: LYV), Lululemon Athletica Inc. (NASDAQ: LULU), Rambus Inc. (NASDAQ: RMBS), Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: REGN), Research-in-Motion Ltd. (NASDAQ: RIMM), SIRIUS XM Radio Inc. (NASDAQ: SIRI), Pandora Media Inc. (NYSE: P), Six Flags Entertainment Corp. (NYSE: SIX), and Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, Inc. (NYSE: VRX).

Inside each preview we have shown what the news or upcoming event is, given price indications, and added color on each if applicable.  Also, we had ten top analyst calls of the week that are carry-over events from last week and we also have a full detailed earnings calendar with previews for the top ten companies reporting earnings this coming week in separate articles.

Automatic Data Processing Inc. (NYSE: ADP) announced on Friday evening that its board of directors had raised its share buyback plan with an additional 35 million shares of common stock on top of about 15 million shares remaining under the previous buyback plan.  If executed entirely, this would be about 10% of its entire stock’s float.

CSX Corporation (NYSE: CSX) is set to split 3-for-1 on Thursday after it declared that split in early May.  This is one of the many pending and current splits, a trend we are seeing more of than we have in years. Shares closed at $73.48 Friday and the 52-week range is $46.51 to $80.42.

Five Star Quality Care Inc. (NYSE: FVE) is expected to have a secondary offering of up to 10 million shares mid-week, with all of the shares expected to be sold by the company.  Shares were pounded on the announcement of the deal with a drop from $7.20 before to $6.27 on the day of the news and then to close out the week at $6.10.  Its market cap is only about $220 million share its 52-week trading range is $2.72 to $8.95.

Gilead Sciences, Inc. (NASDAQ: GILD) disclosed a subpoena from the Department of Justice on Friday after the close, which included requests for documentation on testing of nearly all its products.  The wording also noted “criminal” on top of civil in the subpoena.  If Gilead was Lucille Ball, it would have “splaining” to do.  Surprisingly, shares were only down a little more than 2% at $39.40 after the close on the news. Its 52-week range is $31.73 to $42.93.

Live Nation Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE: LYV) was up 6% Friday on word that Liberty’s John Malone and Live Nation CEO Irving Azoff were in talks to possibly take Live Nation private.  At $10.92, its 52-week trading range is $8.17 to $12.48, but this stock stalled out at $16.00 in April-2010 and has been dead since.

Altera Corp. (NASDAQ: ALTR) Maintained Neutral and $32 target at Gleacher.
Arkansas Best Corp. (NASDAQ: ABFS) Raised to Buy at Stifel Nicolaus.
CommVault Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CVLT) Cut to Market Perform at Morgan Keegan.
Green Dot Corporation (NYSE: GDOT) Started as Overweight at JPMorgan; Started as Neutral at UBS.
JinkoSolar Holding Co. Ltd. (NYSE: JKS) Cut to Hold at Auriga.
Live Nation Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE: LYV) Cut to Hold at Stifel Nicolaus.
Millicom International Cellular SA (NASDAQ: MICC) Cut to Hold at Stifel Nicolaus.
Molycorp, Inc. (NYSE: MCP) Started as Overweight at JPMorgan.
Occidental Petroleum Corporation (NYSE: OXY) Started as Positive at Susquehanna.
Portgual Telecom SA (NYSE: PT) Raised to Overweight at Barclays.
Synovus Financial Corporation (NYSE: SNV) Raised to Buy at Wunderlich.
Waters Corp. (NYSE: WAT) Started as Buy at Auriga.
Werner Enterprises (NASDAQ: WERN) Raised to Buy at Stifel Nicolaus.

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JON C. OGG

Lihua International, Inc. (NASDAQ: LIWA) is a Chinese developer, designer, manufacturer, marketer and distributor of alternatives to pure copper superfine and magnet wire, as well as copper rod products.  It priced a secondary offering of 3,726,708 shares at $8.05 per share. This one is actually trading up 9% at $8.80 on 440,000 shares right before the open.  This is less than a year old and its 52-week range is $5.20 to $12.69. Average volume is only 369,000 shares and this was over $9.00 a week ago.

Pinnacle West Capital Corporation (NYSE: PNW) priced a public secondary offering of 6,000,000 shares of common stock at $38.00 per share via Barclays Capital, Credit Suisse, BofA Merrill Lynch, and Wells Fargo Securities.  Pinnacle is up 0.1% at $38.55 on already over 1 million shares before the open.  The 52-week range is $25.28 to $39.10.

Targa Resources Partners LP (NYSE: NGLS) priced a secondary public offering of 8,500,000 common units owned by Targa LP, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Targa Resources, Inc. at $27.50 per unit. The underwriters are Barclays Capital, BofA Merrill Lynch, Citi, UBS Investment Bank and Wells Fargo and they have a 30-day option to purchase up to 1,275,000 additional common units.  The Partnership will not receive any of the proceeds from this offering and the number of outstanding common units of the Partnership will remain unchanged. The units are down 3.5% at $27.43 right before the open and we have seen almost 1 million units traded.  The 52-week range is $9.00 to $28.87.

Then there are also two key shelf registrations.

Live Nation Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE: LYV) filed last night for the sale of up to 2,969,187 shares of common stock, with a listed value of close to $42.9 million.  This is for shares “issued or to be issued upon the exercise of certain outstanding equity awards held by current and former employees and directors of IAC/InterActiveCorp, HSN, Inc., Interval Leisure Group, Inc. and Tree.com, Inc. and certain former employees and a former director of Ticketmaster under the Amended and Restated Ticketmaster Entertainment, Inc. 2008 Stock and Annual Incentive Plan.”  SHares are largely unaffected as the stock is down only 0.8% at $15.47 on less than 30,000 shares before the open.

Virtus Investment Partners, Inc. (NASDAQ: VRTS) has filed a shelf registration to raise up to $100 million through the sale of equity or debt, some of which may be for holders.

JON C. OGG

AIG (NYSE:AIG) owes many ex-employees retention bonuses  (Reuters)

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) is trying to cut deals to provide book and newspaper content on its new tablet.  (NYTimes)

Live Nation (NYSE:LYV) may sell some assets to close a deal to buy TicketMaster (NASDAQ:TKTM) (NYPost)

Douglas A. McIntyre

Reuters:   Bank of America’s (NYSE:BAC) Lewis will skip 2009 pay.

Reuters:   Japan Airlines says bankruptcy is an option to solving its problems.

Reuters:   Soros says US economy will drag on world growth.

Reuters:   A Congressional committee approved rules for over-the-counter derivatives.

Reuters:   Wasserstein’s death will result in a $186 million payment for restricted stock.

Reuters:   Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) will devote a smaller part of revenue to compensation to help quiet critics.

Reuters:   The Fed’s Fisher said rates would stay low and inflation is not a risk.

WSJ:   Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT) will push Amazon’s (NASDAQ:AMZN) book initiative by offering $10 online deals.

WSJ:   The US is resisting a merger between Live Nation (NYSE:LYV) and TicketMaster (NASDAQ:TKTM)

WSJ:   The loss widened at Sony Ericsson (NYSE:SNE) (NASDAQ:ERIC)

WSJ:   Construction may rebound in 2010.

WSJ:   The Consumer Product Safety Commission will ask China to pay for some of the repairs to home using drywall made in the country.

WSJ:   AMD (NYSE:AMD) posted a small-than-expected loss and Nokia (NYSE:NOK) results were hit by write-offs.

WSJ:   China will probably not support sanctions on Iran.

WSJ:   AIG (NYSE:AIG) will post a loss on the sale of its Taiwan unit.

WSJ:   Profits at Schwab (NASDAQ:SCHW) fell.

WSJ:   Profit margin that measures interest income on a bank’s assets was bad at Citigroup (NYSE:C).

WSJ:   Gap (NYSE:GPS) will open a store in China.

NYT:   Airlines are increasing fares for holiday travel.

NYT:   Some analysts do not see the improvement in earnings at IBM and Google as a sign of a tech turnaround.

NYT:   Federal jobs programs are missing many states that need them most.

NYT:   Ad revenue at McClatchy (NYSE:MNI) declined.

FT:   The Treasury stopped short of saying China manipulates its currency

Bloomberg:   LBOs are making a comeback cutting financing costs for Blackstone (NYSE:BX).

Douglas A. McIntyre

Updated 2:00 PM EST: American Superconductor Corporation (NASDAQ: AMSC) has traded higher all day and some are noting takeover chatter on this one.  We have yet to see anything credible, but this is up close to 4% at $32.60.

Updated  11:57 AM EST  McGraw-Hill (NYSE:MHP) may be close to selling BusinessWeek and would only keep the brand and website. All editor staff members would be let go.  (WWD)

Updated  11.47 AM EST  Riverbed (NASDAQ:RVBD) may be a takeover target for Juniper (NASDAQ:JNPR)  (Barron’s )

Updated 11.44 AM EST  GE (NYSE:GE) and Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA) are still in talks about NBCU with a target for a decision in three weeks.  (CNBC)

Update 11:00… Sequenom Inc. (NASDAQ: SQNM) is up another 9% today at $3.64.  The trader chat is that management and employees may have had no wrongdoing in the botched test data.  This is also not the first day of this, and we are not prepared to pan it or endorse it as it seems too soon.

Real estate developer Young Woo stands to make millions off his purchase of the AIG (NSYE:AIG) building  (TheDeal)

The FDIC is questioning the results of a review of the Citigroup (NYSE:C) management team.  (WSJ)

Chinese firm Sichuan Tengzhong could buy Hummer from GM as early as today (MarketWatch)

Vivendi will sell its 20% of NBCU, probably to GE (NYSE:GE) (The Street)

Sales of the Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPhone and iPod are causing global  flash memory shortages. (AppleInsider)

Charges against two former Bear Stearns executives could hurt JPMorgan’s (NYSE:JPM) bottom line (Fortune)

IRS workers may have had a role in questionable refunds. (Forbes)

The US may start an antitrust probe into the Live Nation (LYV) merger with TicketMaster (TKTM)  (DealBook)

Douglas A. McIntyre

Reuters:   Spot gold hit a record above $1,050.

Reuters:   The Senate healthcare bill weighs in at $829 billion.

Reuters:   Dell (NASDAQ:DELL) plans its first smartphone to be launched with AT&T (NYSE:T) using the Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android OS

Reuters:   Alcoa (NYSE:AA) had a surprise quarterly profit.

Reuters:   ECB will hold rates and cautioned on the recovery.

Reuters:   The Justice Department opened an IBM (NYSE:IBM) antitrust probe.

Reuters:   BlackRock (NYSE:BLK) is competing for a role in rating risk.

Reuters:   “Dark pools” of capital are outpacing regulation according to experts.

Reuters:   As bonds improve Wall St. is hiring some fixed income people back.

Reuters:   Starbucks (NASDAQ:SBUX) sued an executive who left for Dunkin’ Donuts.

WSJ:   Consumer credit outstanding dropped 12% in August, a trend that could hurt the recovery.

WSJ:   The UK is blocking to stop the TicketMaster (NASDAQ:TKTM) buyout of Live Nation (NYSE:LYV).

WSJ:   Retail vacancies hit 20-year highs.

WSJ:   The management at Citigroup (NYSE:C) got good reviews from an outside consulting firm.

WSJ:   The FCC is eying airwave growth for the cellular industry.

WSJ:   The EU says it can settle the Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) antitrust case by year end.

WSJ:   Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) will submit an amended digital book pact.

WSJ:   Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM) unveiled a pocket TV player.

WSJ:   HSBC (NYSE:HBC) is interested in buying certain RBC assets.

WSJ:   Regulators are worried that laws regulating over the counter derivatives are too lax.

WSJ:   Banks will probably report shrinking earnings and higher loan losses for last quarter.

WSJ:   An offering of $20 billion in 10-year Treasuries did well.

WSJ:   The new Skype (NASDAQ:EBAY) application for the Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) could hurt AT&T (NYSE:T) wireless income.

WSJ:   Ford (NYSE:F) is stepping up its ad campaign.

NYT:   A large shareholder wants Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) to replace its CEO with an outsider.

FT; Obama is under pressure on the falling dollar.

Bloomberg:   Earnings estimates for Deutsche Bank (NYSE:DB) and Credit Suisse (NYSE:CS) were raised by Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS).

Douglas A. McIntyre

• Altria (MO) Raised to Neutral from Sell at Banc of America.
• Constellation Brands (STZ) Raised to Buy at UBS.
• Las Vegas Sands (LVS) Raised to Neutral from Sell at Banc of America.
• Live Nation (LYV) Raised to Strong Buy at S&P Equity Research.
• Regions Financial (RF) Raised to Buy at Ladenburg Thalman.
• American Express (AXP) Started as Underperform at Jefferies.
• Comerica (CMA) Cutto Hold at Deutsche Bank.
• Dell (DELL) added to Goldman Sachs Conviction Sell List.
• GT Solar (SOLR) Cut to Underperform at Jefferies.
• TIBCO Software (TIBX) Cut to Underperform at Jefferies.

Jon C. Ogg
November 13, 2008

According to The New York Times "the arrangement would position Live Nation to participate in a range of new deals with Jay-Z, one of music’s most entrepreneurial stars, whose past ventures have included the Rocawear clothing line, which he sold last year for $204 million, and the chain of 40/40 nightclubs."

The deal won’t work on a number of levels. Jay-Z is almost 40 which is ancient in the rapper world. His most recent albums could not be given away for free. Whether he has more successful business ventures in his pocket is an open question. But, if he is no longer a popular rapper he has lost the coin of the realm which makes new enterprises more easy to open.

Last year Live Nation made only $32 million on $4.2 billion in revenue. The firm has long-term debt of $822 million.

LYV has a Jay-Z-like deal with Madonna. They have locked her up for years. She is also as old has the hills, which probably does not work to her advantage since she is not the Rolling Stones, still touring although most of them a close to 100.

Shares in Live Nation traded at $24 last October. Bad numbers and nut-job deals with major artist types have bought that share price down to under $13.

Jay-Z should be paid in LYV stock. At least then he could lose money, too.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Precision Castparts Corp. (NYSE: PCP) was added to the America’s CONVICTION BUY LIST with some 44% upside to its $158 target.  Goldman notes that shares are oversold at -20% year to date.

L-3 Communications (NYSE: LLL) has been removed from the America’s CONVICTION BUY LIST as valuations are now appropriate and leaving only 13% upside to its price target.

Jon C. Ogg
February 12, 2008