24/7 Wall St. » MBT

Eight Countries With Credit Ratings Set to Rise Next Year

Administrator — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 17:14:50 +0000

It seems that all of the nations around the world are facing sovereign credit ratings downgrades or warnings of downgrades. After the United States lost its prized “AAA” rating, the threat of downgrades hangs over all of Europe. Before assuming that the whole financial system is going down the drain with Europe, it is important to realize that some key developing nations are still growing strongly and have better credit metrics. More than 15 nations may even see one or more of the top three ratings agencies upgrade their sovereign credit ratings.

24/7 Wall St. has focused on the ratings with a “positive” outlook from Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s and/or Fitch with a bias towards nations that investors can easily invest in via ADR shares, closed-end funds, and exchange-traded funds (ETFs). The featured nations that may be upgraded in 2012 are Brazil, Chile, China (with Hong Kong), Indonesia, Peru, Russia, South Korea, and Turkey.

Read: Nations Set For Credit Ratings Beyond Upgrades, Beyond The Euro Crisis

There is another slew of countries for which S&P has a “positive” outlook stance: Azerbaijan, Bolivia, Ecuador, Honduras, Latvia, Panama, and Sri Lanka. Unfortunately, these nations are almost impossible for Americans to invest in due to their size, the small number of public companies, and a lack of ETFs or mutual funds covering them.

The 24/7 Wall St. list is presented alphabetically and features relevant ratings. Also included are economic details and important developments to consider. Lastly, we have provided a list of the key closed-end funds, ETFs, and ADRs specific to each nation. Population estimates and purchasing power parity GDP for 2010 were taken from the CIA World Factbook.

Filed under: ADR, Austerity, Banking, Bonds, China, Commodities, Currency, Economy, Editor's Picks, Emerging Markets, ETF, International Markets, Labor & Unions Tagged: BAP, BBD, BCH, BRF, BRFS, BVN, BZF, CEE, CH, CHN, CZZ, ECH, EIDO, EPU, ERJ, ERUS, EWH, EWY, EWZ, FXI, GOL, GXC, IDX, IF, KEF, KEP, KF, LFL, MBT, MTL, PBR, PEK, PKX, RBL, RSX, RSXJ, SAN, SCCO, SKM, SKOR, SQM, TDF, TKC, TKF, TLK, TRF, TUR, VALE, VIP

Top Analyst Upgrades & Downgrades (BSX, CLF, DMND, EP, JNJ, JNPR, KNX, LPS, MBT, VIP, VMED, WYN)

Administrator — Wed, 25 May 2011 12:22:37 +0000

These are some of the top analyst upgrades, downgrades, and initiations seen from Wall Street research calls this Wednesday morning.

Boston Scientific Corporation (NYSE: BSX) Raised to Neutral at Goldman Sachs.
Cliffs Natural Resources Inc. (NYSE: CLF) Raised to Strong Buy at S&P Equity Research (late-Tuesday).
Diamond Foods, Inc. (NASDAQ: DMND) Raised to Buy at BofA/ML.
El Paso Corp. (NYSE: EP) Maintained positive and raised target to $26 at Susquehanna.
Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) Raised to Outperform at Bernstein.
Juniper Networks, Inc. (NYSE: JNPR) Cut to Hold at Auriga.
Knight Transportation Inc. (NYSE: KNX) Cut to Neutral at BofA/ML.
Lender Processing Services (NYSE: LPS) Cut to Underperform as Bear of the Day at Zacks.
Mobile Telesystems OJSC (NYSE: MBT) Cut to Equal-Weight at Morgan Stanley.
Vimpel-Communications (NYSE: VIP) Raised to Overweight at Morgan Stanley.
Virgin Media, Inc. (NASDAQ: VMED) Started as Overweight at Morgan Stanley.
Wyndham Worldwide Corporation (NYSE: WYN) Maintained Outperform as Bull of the Day at Zacks.

You are invited to join our free daily email distribution list to hear more about analyst upgrades and downgrades, top day trader and active trader alerts, dividend trends, news on Buffett and other investment gurus, IPOs, secondary offerings, private equity, and more.

JON C. OGG

Filed under: Analyst Calls Tagged: BSX, CLF, DMND, EP, JNJ, JNPR, KNX, LPS, MBT, VIP, VMED, WYN

Daily M&A: The VimpelCom Surprise (VIP, MBT, VOD)

Administrator — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 16:01:48 +0000

Russia is one of the great new investment frontiers which offers high rewards in a high risk-reward game. When VimpelCom Ltd. (NYSE: VIP) announced that it was acquiring Wind Telecom S.p.A. in Egypt, some shareholders were scratching their heads. The move took VimpelCom from being mostly a Russian (and neighboring nations) into a much larger footprint as it was entering Egypt. The timing perhaps hurt the company considering the strife in North Africa and the Middle East. All the caveats aside, VimpelCom shareholders have now approved the merger with Wind.

This now adds Egypt and more countries into VimpelCom’s markets of Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikstan, Georgia, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. The company now will be more of a global telecom player with over 173 million mobile subscribers out of a target market total population of about 838 million people. The combined company is also said to have what could be $2.5 billion in synergies on a net present value basis.

WIND TELECOM S.p.A. owns 100% of Wind Telecomunicazioni S.p.A. and 51.7% of Orascom Telecom Holding SAE, which in turn operates GSM networks in Algeria, Bangladesh, Egypt, Pakistan, North Korea, and in Canada through its indirect equity ownership in Globalive Wireless.

VimpelCom used to be considered more or less like Mobile Telesystems OJSC (NYSE: MBT) but now it may be considered more and more like a mini-version of Vodafone Group plc (NYSE: VOD).

VimpelCom shares are at $13.86 and its 52-week trading range is $12.32 to $18.97.

JON C. OGG

Filed under: ADR, Mergers and Buy Outs, Telecom, Wireless Tagged: MBT, VIP, VOD

Top Analyst Upgrades & Downgrades (BYD, BKE, CSIQ, CLNE, ENER, ESLR, HANS, IM, JCP, MBT, PL, USI, VLO)

Administrator — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 13:15:02 +0000

These are some of the top analyst upgrades, downgrades, and initiations seen from Wall Street research calls this Friday morning.

Boyd Gaming Corp. (NYSE: BYD) Reiterated Outperform at Credit Suisse.
The Buckle Inc. (NYSE: BKE) Raised to Hold at S&P Equity Research (late-Thursday call).
Canadian Solar, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSIQ) Maintained Buy with $20 target at Auriga.
Clean Energy Fuels Corp. (NASDAQ: CLNE) Maintained Neutral, lowered estimates, but Raised target to $15 at BofA/ML.
Energy Conversion Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ: ENER) maintained Neutral but target cut to $2.50 at Credit Suisse.
Evergreen Solar Inc. (NASDAQ: ESLR) Cut to Underweight at JPMorgan.
Hansen Natural Corporation (NASDAQ: HANS) Cut to Neutral at Goldman Sachs.
Ingram Micro Inc. (NYSE: IM) Raised to Buy at S&P Equity Research (late-Thursday call).
J.C. Penney Co., Inc. (NYSE: JCP) named Bull of the Day at Zacks Investment Research.
Mobile Telesystems (NYSE: MBT) Raised to Outperform at Credit Suisse.
Protective Life Corp. (NYSE: PL) Raised to Neutral at BofA/ML.
Unisys Corporation (NYSE: UIS) Raised to Hold at S&P Equity Research (late-Thursday call).
Valero Energy Corporation (NYSE: VLO) Reiterated Outperform and target raised to $41 at Credit Suisse.

You can join our free daily email distribution list to hear more about analyst upgrades and downgrades, top day trader and active trader alerts, dividend trends, news on Buffett and other investment gurus, IPOs, secondary offerings, private equity, and more.

JON C. OGG

Filed under: Analyst Calls Tagged: BKE, BYD, CLNE, CSIQ, ENER, ESLR, HANS, IM, JCP, MBT, PL, USI, VLO

Top Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades (AEG, BHI, BP, K, KKD, MBT, NAV, CRM, SLB, UTHR, VIP, WFT)

Administrator — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 12:27:16 +0000

These are some of the top analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations we have seen from Wall Street research calls this Thursday morning:

AEGON NV (NYSE: AEG) Cut to Market Perform at KBW.
Baker Hughes Inc. (NYSE: BHI) Raised to Overweight at JPMorgan.
BP plc (NYSE: BP) Cut to Hold at S&P Equity Research; targets cut by Citi.
Kellogg Company (NYSE: K) Started as Buy at Cantor Fitzgerald.
Krispy Kreme Doughnuts (NYSE: KKD) Started as Buy with $6.00 target at Roth Capital.
Mobile Telesystems (NYSE: MBT) Raised to Neutral at Credit Suisse.
Navistar International (NYSE: NAV) Raised to Buy at UBS.
Salesforce.com Inc. (NYSE: CRM) Started as Outperform at Morgan Keegan.
Schlumberger Ltd. (NYSE: SLB) Raised to Strong Buy at S&P Equity Research (late yesterday call).
United Therapeutics (NASDAQ: UTHR) Raised to Overweight at JPMorgan.
VimpelCom (NYSE: VIP) Started as Outperform at Credit Suisse.
Weatherford International Ltd. (NYSE: WFT) Raised to Neutral at JPMorgan.

You can join our free daily email distribution list to hear more about dividend trends, analyst upgrades and downgrades, top day trader and active trader alerts, news on Buffett and other investment gurus, IPOs, secondary offerings, private equity, and more.

JON C. OGG

Sponsor: 3 Recovery Stocks to Own Now – Get the names of the best cheap stocks to rebuild your wealth in 2010 and beyond.

Filed under: Analyst Calls Tagged: AEG, BHI, BP, CRM, K, KKD, MBT, NAV, SLB, UTHR, VIP, WFT

The Unusual Suspects (HRB, TIVO, AAPL, AMLN, LLY, ALKS, PCX, BCE, MBT, QCOM, ZANE)

247wallst — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 15:13:48 +0000

This week’s list of UNUSUAL SUSPECTS for stocks to watch is actually much different from what we have seen in other reports. Earnings season is finally over, so we only have two earnings we gave previews and color in for H&R Block Inc. (NYSE: HRB) and Tivo Inc. (NASDAQ: TIVO). Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) has two trading issues to watch out for this week and beyond. Amylin Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMLN) has a significant binary FDA event that will be important for Eli Lilly & Co. (NYSE: LLY) and Alkermes, Inc. (NASDAQ: ALKS). Patriot Coal Corporation (NYSE: PCX) is one to watch for either M&A or at least for business improvements, or for profit taking. We have a Barron’s trifecta in telecom in BCE, Inc. (NYSE: BCE), Mobile TeleSystems OJSC (NYSE: MBT), and QUALCOMM Inc. (NASDAQ: QCOM). Zanett, Inc. (NASDAQ: ZANE) is the new micro-cap penny stock for traders to watch, at least until the next one comes along.

We have details on each with added color, opinion, possible price reaction, and related news and background data.

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) hit 52-week highs and all-time highs on Friday. Stocks that hit new highs (or which hit new lows) rarely do it just once. It is the extreme momentum. But there are two big issues here to consider for traders. First is that its market cap of now almost $200 billion puts it as one of the 5 largest companies in America and the mega-cap status may get in the way of its ability to grow indefinitely. The second issue is that options trading has exploded as traders are looking for a way to get upside exposure on the cheap. Friday’s fully leveraged options trading was effectively another 50% of the stock volume depending upon your treatment of speculative stock options versus the shares of stock traded.

Amylin Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMLN) has March 12 (Friday) as its PDUFA date for an FDA panel to issue a recommendation on Byetta as the the first once a week treatment for Type II diabetes. Analysts are mixed on the stock with BMO cutting its rating last week, but there were two positive calls from Credit Suisse and Jesup & Lamont. The open interest of stock options is also large enough that the $20 synthetic options straddle would imply that shares have to rise above $24.70 or drop below $15.30 to be profitable. Byetta is already sold with Eli Lilly & Co. (NYSE: LLY), and Alkermes, Inc. (NASDAQ: ALKS) provides the technology that makes Byetta last longer in the delivery mechanism for a once per week use. Open interest in the Alkermes options is elevated but not astronomical. There is a risk here… some feel the FDA will delay this recommendation with a request for more side effect data.

H&R Block Inc. (NYSE: HRB) is set to report earnings Monday. The tax filer had already issued an earnings warning based on so many fewer tax returns that will be filed due to unemployment and underemployment. Thomson Reuters has estimates of $0.15 EPS and $949.55 million for the last quarter, but the coming quarter we are in now has estimates of $$2.13 EPS on $2.47 billion in revenues. The options open interest is surprisingly tiny considering that this one dropped from almost $20 to under $16 when it guided earnings lower two weeks ago.

Patriot Coal Corporation (NYSE: PCX) saw yet another big price spike on Friday, just of about 13.5% to $21.67. The reason being the continued chatter and talk of a Massey (MEE) buyout as well as hopes for continued higher prices-paid for coal to make steel. While we have some pause for concern and while it did temporarily shut its federal mine, the options trading has been very elevated as well in just the March expiration month which means that M&A speculators are betting a deal comes within the next two weeks. Patriot is one of the newest public coal players as it only came public in late 2007, and it saw a triple in the stock in its first few months due to the commodity and energy bubble of 2008. If Massey is really buying the company, its shares traded higher as well by 6% Friday. But there is an issue. Patriot shot up like a Patriot missile from $17 to almost $22 this last week, so if no deal is announced on Monday or Tuesday then we expect at least some profit taking.

Tivo Inc. (NASDAQ: TIVO) is up for earnings Monday and that is just on the heels of it winning an intellectual property war with Dish Network. TiVo literally soared from about $10 to end the week at $17.50. Thomson Reuters has estimates of -$0.12 EPS on $47.45 million in revenues. The market cap based on its win is now $1.9 billion, so we’ll just have to wait and see what the company says in addition to earnings about what will come from its recent win. Based on the new win, the earnings report is likely not important in comparison to the money coming its way. TiVo’s open interest for March options is elevated, and April is now higher than normal.

This weekend’s Barron’s was littered with analysis and picks around telecom. BCE, Inc. (NYSE: BCE) was given a very positive feature article in Barron’s for having better income growth with more room for upside than AT&T and Verizon in the U.S. Also touted was Mobile TeleSystems OJSC (NYSE: MBT) in Russia for its return to growth and for its ability to see continued gains after it underperformed the local stock exchange and an analyst calling for the stock to double in five years. Our call on price impact: On BCE, the tout may generate a 1% or so increase from the $29.51 close; On MBT, the tout may generate up to a 3% increase on top of Friday’s 2.25% gain to $54.50. QUALCOMM Inc. (NASDAQ: QCOM) was given a lightly defended article about its recent woes with the blame game after its poor earnings being about the mix. Due to the big bounce we saw last week on its dividend and share buyback raise, it is possible that QCOM sees another 1.5% gain or so on a static basis.

Zanett, Inc. (NASDAQ: ZANE) had an absolutely crazy week. Its ‘ZANE’ ticker should give this one the new name “Zaney” for traders. It was just on Wednesday that it warned about expecting to receive a NASDAQ delisting notice. But then on Thursday the company announced that “business is booming” as it set a record for contracts closed in the months of January and February 2010 with over $12 million dollars in new business put on the books from 42 different customers. This was a $0.38 stock that is micro-cap and used to sometimes even skip trading days because no volume was there in shares. Yet is closed up exponentially at $2.12 on 8.09 million shares Thursday, only to be followed by an equally zany Friday. Friday’s high was $3.11 and share volume was 8.25 million shares… and its close was $1.93. Call it zany or crazy, but the day traders and speculative penny stock players are all over this one and trading volume here is going to be considerably elevated to its past.

The last issue we want to watch this week is that the valuations are changing somewhat. For starters, this is the first anniversary of the selling apex of March 2009 that then became the biggest bull market seen since the late 1990′s. We have shown how the 52-week trading ranges are about to at least normalize and look more rational in the next month or so without so many stocks being up exponentially from their 52-week lows. We saw this in major tech shares with many normalizations coming, and then the money center bank changes will start to look far more normalized.

A last valuation trend is one that came in the world of biotech and biohealth stocks. There are suddenly many more biotech and biohealth stocks which have crossed into the $1 billion market capitalization level and higher. The long and short of it is that this now makes the ‘investable universe of’ those stocks much larger for institutions.

You can join our free daily email distribution list to hear about analyst upgrades and downgrades, top day trader and active trader alerts, news on Buffett and other investment gurus, IPOs, secondary offerings, private equity, and more.

JON C. OGG

Filed under: Banking, Biotech, Calendar, Earnings, Editor's Picks, HI/LOW, Large Cap Stocks, Mergers and Buy Outs, Rumors, Technology Companies, Telecom, Trading Alert Tagged: AAPL, ALKS, AMLN, BCE, HRB, LLY, MBT, PCX, QCOM, TIVO, ZANE

Top 10 Analyst Upgrades, Downgrades, Initiations (BRCD, BNI, COH, CHK, CSX, HOG, KWK, MBT, NDAQ, SIRI)

247wallst — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 12:52:51 +0000

These are this Thursday’s top early analyst upgrades, downgrades, and initiations from Wall Street research calls which may be moving shares of the underlying stocks:

Brocade Communications (NASDAQ: BRCD) Cut to Neutral at Piper Jaffray; Cut to Hold at ThinkEquity; Cut to Hold at Lazard.
Burlington Northern Santa Fe (NYSE: BNI) Cut to Underweight at Barclays.
Coach Inc. (NYSE: COH) Started as Hold at KeyBanc.
Chesapeake Energy (NYSE: CHK) Started as Buy at Lazard.
CSX Corp. (NYSE: CSX) Raised to Equal-Weight at Barclays.
Harley-Davidson (NYSE: HOG) Started as Underweight at KeyBanc.
Quicksilver Resources Inc. (NYSE: KWK) Started as Buy at Lazard.
Mobile TeleSystems (NYSE: MBT) Raised to Buy at UBS.
NASDAQ OMX Group (NASDAQ: NDAQ) Raised to Positive at Susquehanna.
SIRIUS XM Radio Inc. (NASDAQ: SIRI) put on positive credit watch at S&P late yesterday during trading hours.

You can join our open email distribution list which goes out several times per week to be notified of key analyst calls, top early morning day trader alerts, along with news of IPO’s, key offerings, guru investor data on Buffett and others, key merger news, and more.

JON C. OGG

Posted in Analyst Calls Tagged: BNI, BRCD, CHK, COH, CSX, HOG, KWK, MBT, NDAQ, SIRI

Russian ADRs Take Off (MTL)(LUKOY)

247wallst — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 20:25:02 +0000

Tickerspy’s Russian Stock and ADR Index is up close to 5% as the market goes into its close. Among the biggest movers was LUKOIL (OTC: LUKOY), an oil and gas company that was up over 6.5% today. Mechel OAO (NYSE: MTL), a mining company, was also up over 6.5%.

Russian oil and mining stocks were up today largely due to the effects of this weekend’s G-20 meetings, where world leaders agreed to continue their fiscal and monetary stimulus until global economic recovery. This news gave investors confidence that there will be demand for industrial commodities in the coming quarters. This has had the effect of pushing up the value of Russia’s ruble again the dollar, along with Russia MICEX index, as oil and metals mining represent a significant portion of that country’s economy.

Garrett W. McIntyre

Posted in Emerging Markets, ETF, International Markets, Metals Tagged: CTCM, LUKOY, MBT, MTL, NILSY, OGZPY, ROS, SGTPY, VIP, WBD

Top Pre-Market Analyst Downgrades (AINV, BHI, BAC, WFR, MBT, OZM, SPWRA, STP, VIP, WMT)

247wallst — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 07:40:00 +0000

These are some of the top pre-market analyst downgrades or cautious calls we are seeing from Wall Street this Wednesday morning:

Apollo Investment (AINV) Cut to Neutral from Overweight at JPMorgan.
Baker Hughes (BHI) Cut to Underweight at from Overweight at Morgan Stanley.
Bank of America (BAC) Cut to Neutral at Baird.
MEMC Electronics (WFR) Cut to Hold at Citigroup.
Mobile TeleSystems (MBT) Cut to Underperform at credit Suisse.
Och-Ziff Capital Management Group LLC (OZM) Cut to Market Perform at KBW.
Sunpower (SPWRA) Started as Neutral at Merriman Curhan Ford.
Suntech Power (STP) Started as Sell at Merriman Curhan Ford.
Vimpel Com (VIP) Cut to Neutral from Outperform at Credit Suisse.
Wal-Mart (WMT) Cut to Neutral from Outperform at Credit Suisse.

Jon C. Ogg
January 21, 2009

Posted in Analyst Calls Tagged: AINV, BAC, BHI, MBT, OZM, SPWRA, STP, VIP, WFR, WMT

Top Pre-Market Analyst Downgrades (ABB, BCS, CPO, CYNO, FFIV, GG, HMA, HBC, MBT, NWS, TRI, VIA, VIP)

247wallst — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 07:53:16 +0000

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

ABB (ABB) Cut to Neutral at Goldman Sachs.
Barclays (BCS) Cut to Sell at RBS.
Corn Products (CPO) Cut to Sell at Deutsche Bank.
Cynosure (CYNO) Cut to Hold at Citigroup.
F5 Networks (FFIV) Cut to Neutral at UBS.
Goldcorp (GG) Cut to Neutral at JPMorgan.
Health Management (HMA) Cut to underweight at Barclays.
HSBC (HBC) Cut to Sell at RBS.
Mobile TeleSystems (MBT) Cut to Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley.
News Corp. (NWS) Cut to Neutral at UBS.
Thomson Reuters (TRI) Cut to Neutral at JPMorgan.
Viacom (VIA) Cut to Neutral at UBS.
Vimpelcom (VIP) Cut to Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley.

Jon C. Ogg
January 16, 2009

Posted in Analyst Calls Tagged: ABB, BCS, CPO, CYNO, FFIV, GG, HBC, HMA, MBT, NWS, TRI, VIA, VIP