24/7 Wall St. » MDC

Top Analyst Upgrades & Downgrades (ANF, ALTR, AIG, APA, CIEN, EXPE, LAZ, LDK, MDC, NSM, NVDA, QCOM, URBN, VRTX)

Administrator — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 13:12:23 +0000

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

Abercrombie & Fitch Co. (NYSE: ANF) Raised to Buy at BofA/ML.
Altera Corporation (NASDAQ: ALTR) Reiterated Buy but raised target to $52.50 at Gleacher & Co.

American International Group Inc. (NYSE: AIG) Raised to Outperform as Bull of the Day at Zacks Investment Research.
Apache Corporation (NYSE: APA) Raised to Hold at Argus.
CIENA Corporation (NASDAQ: CIEN) Raised to Neutral at JPMorgan.
Expedia Inc. (NASDAQ: EXPE) Raised to Buy at Citigroup.
Lazard Ltd. (NYSE: LAZ) Reiterated Buy at Argus.
LDK Solar Co., Ltd. (NYSE: LDK) Cut to Sell at Collins Stewart.
MDC Holdings Inc. (NYSE: MDC) Raised to Hold at Credit Suisse.
National Semiconductor (NYSE: NSM) Reiterated Buy with $18 target at Gleacher & Co.
NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ: NVDA) Raised to Neutral at JPMorgan.
QUALCOMM Incorporated (NASDAQ: QCOM) Cut to Market Perform at BMO.
Urban Outfitters Inc. (NASDAQ: URBN) Cut to Neutral at SunTrust.
Vertex Pharmaceuticals Incorporated (NASDAQ: VRTX) Cut to Market Perform at BMO.

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: AIG, ALTR, ANF, APA, CIEN, EXPE, LAZ, LDK, MDC, NSM, NVDA, QCOM, URBN, VRTX

Common Themes in 52-Week Lows (APOL, CEU, DF, MDC, PHM, RYL, SVU)

Administrator — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 17:52:29 +0000

We are seeing a new round of 52-week lows this Monday with some basic themes from education to food to homebuilders. Some of those tracked hitting 52-week lows are Apollo Group Inc. (NASDAQ: APOL), China Education Alliance Inc. (NYSE: CEU), Dean Foods Company (NYSE: DF), M.D.C. Holdings Inc. (NYSE: MDC), Pultegroup Inc. (NYSE: PHM), Ryland Group Inc. (NYSE: RYL), and SUPERVALU Inc. (NYSE: SVU).

Apollo Group Inc. (NASDAQ: APOL) still struggles under its new business model that will obviously lower enrollment under a new tighter regulatory environment. Shares hit yet another 52-week low of $33.80 today versus a high of $66.69. Currently shares are down 1% at $34.11 in rather light trading volume.

China Education Alliance Inc. (NYSE: CEU) is getting killed this Monday, although this is a China online education and training company. Shares are down 42% at $2.55, but this hit a low of $2.34 in today’s trading.

Dean Foods Company (NYSE: DF) is still reeling from its woes. On light trading volume this post-Thanksgiving Monday, shares hit another 52-week low of $7.34 versus a 52-week high of $18.79. Shares are now down $0.02 at $7.35. Be advised, this is a decade low.

Trouble is still there for homebuilders with three seen hitting 52-week lows this Monday. M.D.C. Holdings Inc. (NYSE: MDC) hit a low of $24.56 for the last year versus a high of $39.28. Pultegroup Inc. (NYSE: PHM) is down 0.5% at $6.17, but the low today now gives a 52-week trading range of $6.13 to $13.91. Ryland Group Inc. (NYSE: RYL) is down 1.25 at $14.20 in early afternoon trading, but the low today gives a new 52-week trading range of $14.17 to $26.03. 14.28 -0.09 -0.63% 14.63 14.16 448,260

SUPERVALU Inc. (NYSE: SVU) is now fighting its name as investors are deciding if there is anything super or any value. The slide has continued despite the brief recovery this morning. While shares are up 0.9% at $8.75, the 52-week range is now $8.67 to $17.89. Today’s lows go back to 1995 or so.

JON C. OGG

Filed under: Food, HI/LOW, Housing Tagged: APOL, CEU, DF, MDC, PHM, RYL, SVU

BofA/Merrill Lynch Resumes Homebuilder Coverage (TOL, BZH, KBH, RYL, DHI, HOV, PHM, LEN, MDC, XHB)

247wallst — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 13:36:36 +0000

Bank of America/Merrill Lynch has initiated coverage of the homebuilder sector this morning. Technically this is a resumption of coverage. While some are positive calls, there are still some cautious undertones here from the firm. Toll Brothers Inc. (NYSE: TOL) was initiated with an “Underperform” rating with a $16.00 target. The “Neutral” rated homebuilder is Beazer Homes USA Inc. (NYSE: BZH) with a $4.50 target. The “BUY” rated homebuilders are as follows:

KB Home (NYSE: KBH) with a $20 target,
Ryland Group Inc. (NYSE: RYL) with a $28 target,
DR Horton Inc. (NYSE: DHI) with a $16 target,
Hovnanian Enterprises Inc. (NYSE: HOV) with a $5 target,
Pulte Homes Inc. (NYSE: PHM) with a $13 target,
Lennar Corp. (NYSE: LEN) with a $21 target,
and MDC Holdings Inc. (NYSE: MDC) with a $43 target.

There has hardly been any reaction in the SPDR S&P Homebuilders (NYSE: XHB) this morning, but most of these components are indicated higher after coverage was initiated this morning.

You are invited to join our free daily email distribution list to hear about top analyst upgrades and downgrades, IPOs and secondary offerings, ongoing day trader and options trader alerts, stock and market rumors, Buffett and guru investor news, M&A and more.

JON C. OGG
FEBRUARY 17, 2010

Filed under: Analyst Calls, ETF, Housing Tagged: BZH, DHI, HOV, KBH, LEN, MDC, PHM, RYL, TOL, XHB

Looking for Next Homebuilder Merger? (DHI, TOL, NVR, MDC, LEN, KBH, RYL, MTH, HOV, MHO, SPF, XHB, ITB, PKB)

247wallst — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 13:46:27 +0000

We won’t bother telling you about the homebuilder merger this morning, because we already covered it once. But in a down and out sector, you will see that traders are looking to see if there will be other mergers in the battered group. As you will also see, the lower market cap stocks are the ones where traders are guessing as to which will be the next take-out candidate. Our cut off was a $100 million market cap as of yesterday and every stock in the sector that we track in the U.S. is higher.

DR Horton Inc. (DHI)….. $3.5B; +5.8% at $10.78
Toll Brothers Inc. (TOL). $3.1B; +4.5% at $18.86
NVR Inc. (NVR)……….. $2.6B; +4% at $6.86
MDC Holdings Inc. (MDC).. $1.5B; +4.5% at $30.95
Lennar Corp. (LEN)……. $1.2B; +11% at $7.98
KB Home (KBH)………… $1.1B; +6% at $14.30
Ryland Group Inc. (RYL).. $728.8M; +6% at $16.80
Meritage Homes Corp(MTH). $401.3M; +7.3% at $12.99
Hovnanian (HOV)………. $125.0M; +11% at $1.72
M/I Homes, Inc. (MHO)…. $121.7M; +2.2% at $8.72
Standard Pacific (SPF)… $100.6M; +11% at $1.00

Oddly enough, the SPDR S&P Homebuilders (NYSE: XHB) ETF is only up almost 4% at $11.37. The other ETF, the iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction (NYSE: ITB) is up 3.5% at $9.25. This is a slightly different ETF, but the PowerShares Dynamic Building & Construct (NYSE: PKB) is up 1.3% at $9.65 on very thin volume.

JON C. OGG

Posted in ETF, Housing, Mergers and Buy Outs, Trading Alert Tagged: DHI, HOV, ITB, KBH, LEN, MDC, MHO, MTH, NVR, PKB, RYL, SPF, TOL, XHB

Credit Suisse Starts Homebuilder Coverage (CTX, DHI, KBH, MDC, NVR, HOV, MTH)

247wallst — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 05:50:29 +0000

Credit Suisse has issued a new coverage rating systems for its homebuilder universe. These are some of the calls we saw in the sector:

Centex (NYSE: CTX), DR Horton (NYSE: DHI), and KB Home (NYSE: KBH) were all started with "Outperform" ratings.
MDC Holdings (NYSE: MDC) and NVR (NYSE: NVR) were both started as Neutral.
Hovnanian (NYSE: HOV) and Meritage Homes (NYSE: MTH) were started as "Underperform."

We’ll follow up if we see any of the other calls in the sector out of Credit Suisse.
Jon C. Ogg
June 24, 2008

Homebuilder & Housing Analyst Upgrades (KBH, MDC, PHM, TOL)

247wallst — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 07:48:35 +0000

This morning, Banc of America has actually upgraded the homebuilder sector. This may be the first such round of upgrades from a brokerage firm across the board in what seems like forever. The price targets haven’t been seen yet, but here are some of the summary notes:

KB Home (NYSE: KBH), MDC Holdings (NYSE: MDC), Pulte Homes (NYSE: PHM) raised to Buy.
Toll Brothers (NYSE: TOL) raised to Neutral from Sell.

Homebuilder stocks were hit hard yesterday, but last week we noted how the strong rally had taken some of the homebuilder stocks up more than 100% from their lows, and some were even up 200%.

When was the last time you saw ANY good news in this sector?

Jon C. Ogg
February 5, 2008

Which Homebuilder Stock Goes To Zero First? (XHB, DHI, TOL, LEN, PHM, CTX, NVR, KBH, MDC, RYL, HOV, BZH)

247wallst — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 15:45:24 +0000

Everyone keeps predicting one or more of the large US Homebuilders is going to implode because of their overbuilding and inability to sell new units at their old highly profitable margins. Most of these have large land bank losses from property options being written off. inventories are through the roof, no pun intended. Well, you’ve seen and heard the news.

What we wanted to do was show a list of the old major homebuilders to show how the stocks have sold off over the last year and even how low the market caps have become in the sector. Dubai has signaled it wants to buy into a homebuilder, and that was before Abu Dhabi injected $7.5 Billion into Citigroup.

Measuring stock price alone is no way to judge, but looking at the sell-offs from the recent highs may be a judge. Some are down more than 80% from their 52-week highs.

Tick PRICE       CHANGE          $52-WEEK    MKT-CAP
DHI $10.23 (-$0.35; -3.31%) $10.46-31.13    $3.22B
TOL $18.12 (-$0.01; -0.06%) $18.12-35.64    $2.84B
LEN $14.08 (-$0.42; -2.90%) $14.50-56.54    $2.26B
PHM $8.92 (-$0.24; -2.62%) $9.00-35.56       $2.28B
CTX $17.93 (-$0.45; -2.45%) $18.34-58.42    $2.18B
NVR $442.59 (+$8.59; +1.98%) $398.96-851.96 $2.27B
KBH $18.65 (-$1.00; -5.09%) $19.61-56.08    $1.92B
MDC $32.15 (-$0.40; -1.23%) $32.49-60.34    $1.47B
RYL $19.76 (-$0.26; -1.30%) $19.97-60.13    $831.58M
HOV $6.95    (+0.02; +0.29%) $6.92-38.66       $432.32M
BZH $7.12    (+0.15; -2.06%)    $7.06-48.60       $279.16M

We aren’t going to make a determination yet as to which ones will live and which ones will bite the dust. Unfortunately you can’t even trust the balance sheets right now because there is simply no way to calculate the off-book transactions, the value writedowns that each will fess up to, and how many of these homes that were juiced-up and sold above market with rebates and incentives that some of the builders will ultimately have to take back at some point in the future.

At least one or some will likely fail. History would dictate that some cannot survive the malaise if it continues at this rate. Ultimately, some will thrive after this dust storm settles. But "ultimately" can be a long ways off.

If you noticed the news this morning you saw a 4.5% decrease in housing prices in Q3 2007 over Q3 2006, and that was after a 2.2% decrease in Q2. There is no price rebound expected in 2008, and foreclosures are expected to rise as well.

The SPDR S&P Homebuilders ETF (AMEX:XHB) shares are down 0.8% at $17.05 late in the day.

DR Horton (DHI), Toll Brothers (TOL), Lennar (LEN),Pulte (PHM), Centex (CTX), NVR Inc. (NVR), MDC Holdings (MDC), Ryland (RYL), Hovnanian (HOV), Beazer (BZH)……

Jon C. Ogg
November 27, 2008

24/7 Wall St. has an open email distribution list with other similar briefs and stories where we summarize and preview data for those interested. It is usually sent out two to three times per week.

Starbucks, Waiting For Earnings (SBUX, WFMI, MCD)

247wallst — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 13:11:30 +0000

Starbucks Corp. (NASDAQ:SBUX) has seen its stock under pressure since the end of 2006. Tonight it reports earnings, and First Call estimates are $0.21 EPS and almost $2.4 Billion in revenues. The next quarter estimates are $0.21 EPS and $2.44 Billion in revenues, and next quarter marks the fiscal 2007-end. Fiscal September-2008 looks like estimates are $1.06 EPS on revenues of $11.33 Billion, although we would caution that the range is wider than closer earnings because of 15-months outlook.

We already discussed how the company has a long way to go before itcan fix its woes. Upon some store revisits it seems the company is trying, and we have already been given notice of some price hikes that are going to be passed on to yours truly and you. The larger food initiative that is being rolled out on top of last year’s rollout is still in the infancy, so perhaps we’ll get a glimpse of the company’s thoughts there. The company has been under pressure from McDonalds (NYSE:MCD) and faces other pressure from Dunkin and others. Here was our list of suggestions in May for the company to follow after we did a series of store evaluations in various locations.

What is interesting is if we take this into the consumer-meets-investor mindset. Last night Whole Foods (NASDAQ:WFMI) posted stronger than expected or not as weak of results, and shares are up big today as a result. Sure these comapnies are in different segments, but what they have in common is a loyal client base AND large earnings and valuation multiples compared to their competitors. A 30+ P/E ratio used to be a 40+ P/E ratio for the longest time. The question is what P/E multiple can victory be declared for a fair value. We ran a piece wondering if shares had come close to a bottom at the end of June, and that is still an outstanding item.

It’s quite possible that this multiple may need to compress further, but using the forward 2008 multiple it trades at an estimated 25.1 forward P/E. Some will still deem this high if the market continues its weakness and volatility, but with earnings per share growth at more than 20% it becomes and argument over who will pay what for that growth. If you wanted to use a ‘forward’ PEG ratio of 1.25 this becomes cheaper, with the flaw being that this is trying to fast-forward a year. Based on that, this could still face more pressure as investors and traders fight over what the true value is. But with the 52-week high of $40.00 and the curent $26.60 price it just looks and feels like the worst could be behind it. One earnings warning or major hiccup will blow holes in that theory, and that always has to be kept in mind.

Starbucks also saw its most recent short interest rise from 25.8 million shares in June to almost 27.4 million shares in July. Options traders based on a static quote mid-day appear to be braced for a price move of just over 2.2% in either direction, although that is arguable with shares being stuck between strike prices. The average analyst price target is still $35.00 or higher.

Jon C. Ogg
August 1, 2007

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

Short Sellers Boost Bet Against Homebuilders (June 2007)

247wallst — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 14:54:23 +0000

Stock Tickers: XHB, DHI, LEN, PHM, CTX, TOL, NVR, KBH, MDC, RYL, SPF, BZH, HOV

This can’t be a shock considering ‘how great’ the housing market is and how many new homes are selling in the US. There was a boost to the short selling in US-based homebuilding stocks. Oddly enough, the SPDR Hombuilder ETF (HXB) saw a fairly large drop, which means that traders are using this as a hedging instrument or they are deciding to go after the basket to to minimize headline risk in any one name. We could have listed 1- more homebuilders, but we cut the list off at the $1 Billion market cap line.

Here are the changes in the number of shares in the Short Interest:

Stock (Ticker)                   JUNE    MAY       Change
DR Horton (DHI)             30.14M 28.52M +5.9%
Centex (CTX)                      17.2M 16.3M    +5.4%
Toll Brothers (TOL)          23.67M 22.75M +4%
NVR Inc.(NVR)                   1.31M 961K       +40%
MDC Holdings (MDC)       7.19M 6.82M       +5.4%
Ryland Group (RYL)          9.97M 9.43M       +5.6%
Standard Pacific (SPF)    16.92M 16.28M +3.9%
Hovnanaian (HOV)             18.61M 17.52M +6.2%
Lennar (LEN)                      15.52M 15.6M    -0.8%
Pulte Homs (PHM)             25.03M 25.13M -0.4%
KB Home (KBH)                   17.64M 17.7M    -1.2%
Beazer Homes (BZH)          14.63M 15.96M -8.3%

Jon C. Ogg
June 22, 2007

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

May Short Interest in Homebuilders Up (XHB, KBH, DHI, PHM, CTX, NVR, MDC, HOV, BZH, LEN, TOL, RYL)

247wallst — Tue, 22 May 2007 08:32:09 +0000

Stock Tickers: XHB, KBH, DHI, PHM, CTX, NVR, MDC, HOV, BZH, LEN, TOL, RYL

The short interest for MAY 2007 is out. We noticed an increase in the number of shares in the May short interest in the beloved homebuilders, although there are some whose short interest actually fell. The SPDR Homebuilders ETF (XHB) saw its short interest rise from 19.724 million in April up to 20.233 million shares in May, or a 2.5% increase.

Here is the rest of the May short interest versus April:

STOCK (Ticker)             MAY07 APR07 Change
KB Home (KBH)             17.87M 17.62M 1.4%
DR Horton (DHI)             28.52M 25.01M 14%
Pulte Homes (PHM)    25.13M 23.23M 8.2%
Centex (CTX)                16.32M 15.19M 7.4%
NVR Inc. (NVR)             961K       928K    3.5%
MDC Hldgs. (MDC)       6.82M    6.08M    12%
Hovnanian (HOV)          17.52M 15.94M 9.9%
Beazer Homes (BZH) 15.97M 14.49M 10.1%

Drop
Lennar (LEN)                15.65M 15.9M -1.6%
Toll Brothers (TOL)       22.75M 23.09M -1.5%
Ryland (RYL)                   9.44M    10.7M -11.8%

Jon C. Ogg
May 22, 2007

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