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Media Digest 10/12/2009

247wallst — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 08:03:35 +0000

Reuters: E-mails and the credit crisis will be key to the trial of Bear Stearns workers.

Reuters: The approval process for Tengzhong to buy Hummer has started in China.

Reuters: Philips Electronics (NYSE:PHG) beat expectations.

Reuters: Liz Claiborne’s (NYSE:LIZ) decision to sell its brands at J C Penny (NYSE:JCP) should help both companies.

Reuters: Citigroup (NYSE:C)) is expected to be fined $600,000 by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority over derivatives transactions that helped foreign clients avoid taxes on dividends.

Reuters: Lazard (NYSE:LAZ) chief Bruce Wasserstein is in the hospital.

Reuters: Small US firms are being crushed by the credit crisis.

WSJ: CNOOC may offer a rival bid to Exxon’s (NYSE:XOM) for developing a Ghana oil field.

WSJ: Companies are granting options to executives prior to M&A activity. The practice was done at Omniture (NASDAQ:OMTR), which was bought by Adobe (NASDAQ:ADBE), and Marvel (NYSE:MVL) ,which was bought by Disney (NYSE:DIS).

WSJ: China is using futures exchanges to fight high commodities prices.

WSJ: Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) said the T-Mobile clients using handsets powered by the software company’s products may loss key data on their phones.

WSJ: The SEC investigation is hurting already struggling KB Homes (NYSE:KBH).

WSJ: Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA) wants the muscle of NBC Sports.

WSJ: Lufthansa will offer advanced wireless connections on all of its long-haul flights.

WSJ: Foreclosures are rising among expensive housing.

WSJ: Investors are betting on Google’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) shares ahead of earnings.

WSJ: Consumers are being asked to save more and spend more at the same time.

WSJ: Wells Fargo’s (NYSE:WFC) takeover of Wachovia will allow it to expand its mutual fund business.

WSJ: Financial firms are having to set aside money for off balance sheet funds.

NYT: The Administration is upping attacks on News Corp’s (NYSE:NWS) Fox News.

NYT: Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) and IBM (NYES:IBM) are offering university students tools to handle vast amounts of complex data.

NYT: E-commerce companies are getting better at encouraging people to buy things that abandon at online stores.

NYT: Clicks on display ads are dropping quickly.

FT: Blackstone (NYSE:BLK) will list a number of the firms that it owns.

FT: The US pay czar is getting tough on AIG (NYSE:AIG) pay packages.

FT: Many investors are urging Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) to hire an outside chief.

Bloomberg: Soros will put $1 billion into green technology.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Posted in Press Digest Tagged: ADBA, AIG, BAC, BLK, C, CMCSA, DIS, GOOG, IBM, JCP, KBH, LAZ, LIZ, MSFT, MVL, NWS, OMTR, PHG, WFC, XOM

How Much Higher Can Omniture Bid Fetch? (OMTR, ADBE, MSFT, GOOG, TWX)

247wallst — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 19:03:50 +0000

Omniture Inc. (NASDAQ: OMTR) seems like another niche ad-tech play that has gone on over the recent years, but it could possibly be much more. Adobe Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: ADBE) gave a $21.50 per share cash tender buyout price valued at some $1.8 billion. What is interesting is that there is already a thought over whether the company deserves to get a higher price. The company’s online marketing suite and other operations make it an interesting acquisition for anyone wanting to get further into advertising intelligence for business optimization that allows for smarter and smarter marketing.

Following Adobe’s agreement to acquire Omniture, there is already some speculation that a second bid could be coming. Which firm that could come from is up in the air, but Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) is one of the names thrown into the ring. Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) is another which could conceivably pursue this deal. Google might want to grow its own or think it doesn’t need to buy Omniture since it already has such a giant share of search and gets all the data mining the online population. With Time Warner Inc. (NYSE: TWX) being a client for AOL, that could be a possibility, but the pending break-off there makes that less likely. Omniture lists eBay, AOL, Wal-Mart, Gannett, Microsoft, Neiman Marcus, Oracle, Sony and HP as its anchor clients.

We were told by a contact that JMP Securities was one of the firms which thinks another bid is at least possible, yet there are many who doubt it or who do not care about the thought. Today, we have seen analyst downgrades after the deal announcement:

Cut to Sector Perform at Pacific Crest;
Cut to Hold at Canaccord Adams;
Cut to Market Perform at BMO Capital;
Cut to Neutral at JPMorgan;

What is interesting is that the stock has traded above the buyout price the entire day. Shares opened at $21.61 and had a low of $21.57. Now shares are up at $21.94 and briefly traded as high as $22.05. For some color, the 52-week high was $22.45, but the highs back in late-2007 were actually north of $30.00.

When you see a share price trading north of its purchase price, there is generally a belief that there is a chance of a higher bid that will come either from a competing bid or from the company making the offer in the first place. For the last decade I have used a very basic formula for calculating the implied odds of a higher price…

The first 2% premium during the same calendar week after a deal is announced is usually the “hope” and “speculation” unless there is a much bigger market. Every 1% above the first 2% deal-premium in that week would generate a 10% mental chance of a slightly higher bid.
In the calendar week after a deal has been announced, and after the would-be rivals have had a chance to meet with bankers and run figures, then we take the threshold down to a 1% base premium. Each 1% above the first 1% deal-premium at that point generates a 10% expectation that a higher buyout from a rival or the firm would come. So when you see stocks trading more than 10% above a buyout price, it implies that there the market is factoring effectively a 100% chance of a higher bid or a rival bid coming into play.

Based on that formula or scenario, that gives almost but still less than a 10% chance of a higher bid in our minds. If this price holds up into next week, we’d be looking at between a 10% and 20% chance of a higher bid coming. I have always rounded up in those figures, and again these are just basic assumptions as a starting point.

A second method here is to use the premiums in the closest out-of the-money Call options. Unfortunately, September-2009 CALLS expire this Friday, so the $0.05 price would give a very low chance of a buyout. Effectively, that means the market maker for the option expects effectively no trades above $22.55. If we were assigning a value to that, this would also imply less than a 10% chance of a higher bid coming, but that would only imply that the under-10% is through the close of this Friday. And the data on PUT/CALL strike prices is too thin in the coming months to offer more color here.

Mergers usually take weeks to months to close and any deal can change at any time. But the odds of a higher price coming here in the immediate future seem fairly low based upon an internal model and based upon options trading.

Adobe is down over 6% at $33.32 and is nowhere close to its 52-week highs like so many other key NASDAQ stocks. Its market cap after today’s drop is $17.5 billion.

Jon C. Ogg
September 16, 2009

Posted in Business Services, Entertainment, Internet, Media, Mergers and Buy Outs, Software Tagged: ADBE, GOOG, MSFT, OMTR, TWX

Top Day Trader Alerts (AEZS, KERX, AGCO, ACAS, CTIC, C, FLEX, CLS, SANM, JBL, OMTR, ADBE)

247wallst — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 13:15:41 +0000

These are this Wednesday morning’s top pre-market day trader alert and active trader alert stocks moving on unusual trading volume. We have a link through to more color and analysis on price and volume over at VSInvestor.com on each stock:

AEterna Zentaris Inc. (NASDAQ: AEZS) and Keryx Biopharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: KERX) are both ramping higher an FDA orphan-drug designation news.

Agco Corp. (AGCO) is trading lower by 7% on lower guidance.

American Capital Ltd. (NASDAQ: ACAS) is surging almost 20% after Corning Incorporated (NYSE: GLW) paid $400 million in cash for shares of another portfolio company.

Cell Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: CTIC) is up 5% on very active volume on more pixantrone for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma news, but this is on positive data.

Citigroup, Inc. (NYSE: C) is up again on strong volume… we have color on prior day’s price levels here for inference.

Flextronics International Ltd. (NASDAQ: FLEX) is surging by almost 9% this morning after a Jim Cramer tout last night.. we are watching EMS rivals like Celestica Inc. (NYSE: CLS), Sanmina-SCI Corp. (NASDAQ: SANM) and Jabil Circuit Inc. (NYSE: JBL) on this.

Omniture, Inc. (NASDAQ: OMTR) is the biggest volume stock in the pre-market at NASDAQ after getting acquired by Adobe Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: ADBE).

You can join our open email distribution list which goes out several times per week for top analyst upgrades and downgrades, top day trader alerts, IPO’s, key secondary offerings, guru investor data on Buffett and others, mergers, and more.

JON C. OGG
SEPTEMBER 16, 2009

Posted in After-Hours Activity, Pre-Market Activity, Trading Alert Tagged: ACAS, ADBE, AEZS, AGCO, C, CLS, CTIC, FLEX, JBL, KERX, OMTR, SANM

Top Analyst Downgrades (ANSS, CBT, ED, CFR, DUK, LLY, EL, GGP, HW, ISRG, OMTR, RBS)

247wallst — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 11:59:11 +0000

These are some of the top analyst downgrades and cautious research calls we have seen from Wall Street early this Tuesday morning:

Ansys (ANSS) Cut to Neutral from Overweight at JPMorgan.
Cabot (CBT) Cut to Underweight at JPMorgan.
Consolidated Edison (ED) Cut to Neutral at Credit Suisse.
Cullen/Frost Bankers (CFR) Cut to Underperform at Oppenheimer.
Duke Energy (DUK) Cut to Neutral at Credit Suisse.
Eli Lilly (LLY) Cut to Underperform at Leerink Swann.
Estee Lauder (EL) Cut to Sell at UBS.
General Growth Properties (GGP) Cut to Market Perform at Wachovia.
Headwater (HW) Cut to Hold at Canaccord Adams.
Intuitive Surgical (ISRG) Cut to Market Perform at Leerink Swann.
Omniture (OMTR) Cut to Hold at Citigroup.
Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) Cut to Market Perform at Bernstein.

JON C. OGG

Posted in Analyst Calls Tagged: ANSS, CBT, CFR, DUK, ED, EL, GGP, HW, ISRG, LLY, OMTR, RBS

Top Analyst Upgrades (ADBE, ALGT, AXP, DRIV, GMR, MSFT, NFLX, OMTR, CRM, SYMC)

247wallst — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 11:52:19 +0000

These are some of the top analyst upgrades or positive initiations we have seen early this morning with about two hours until the open:

Adobe Systems (ADBE) Raised to Outperform at RBC.
Allegiant Travel (ALGT) Started as Overweight at Barclays.
American Express (AXP) Raised to Hold from Sell at Citigroup.
Digital River (DRIV) Raised to Outperform at RBC.
General Maritime (GMR) Raised to Overweight at JPMorgan.
Microsoft (MSFT) Raised to Outperform at RBC.
Netflix (NFLX) Started as Overweight at Thomas Weisel.
Omniture (OMTR) Raised to Outperform at RBC.
Salesforce.com (CRM) Raised to Outperform at RBC.
Symantec (SYMC) Raised to Outperform at RBC.

JON C. OGG

Posted in Analyst Calls Tagged: ADBE, ALGT, AXP, CRM, DRIV, GMR, MSFT, NFLX, OMTR, SYMC

As Market Plunges, Major Stocks Fall Under $10 (Part 2) (LTD, OMTR, RSH, RGS, SCOR, LUV, SBUX, WFMI)

247wallst — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 14:53:33 +0000

It has been almost impossible for most stocks to avoid the carnageand mayhem of late. It is interesting just how many widely held stocks have broken under the $10.00 share price level today. This can screw up optionstrading and begins to genuinely worry investors who were alreadyworried. Shares never dip under $10.00 because things are great.

Limited Brands (NYSE: LTD) broke $10.00 Monday, and it keeps looking farther and farther away at $8.80. Candles, body products, and undies… not recession-proof.

Omniture (NASDAQ: OMTR) re-broke the $10.00 barrier this week. Business optimization must not be good when the recession is there whether you optimize or not.

Radio Shack (NYSE: RSH), same boat as Best Buy sales even if CircuitCity died. Consumer electronics aren’t doing so hot, and PC’s under$500 just can’t be that profitable.

Regis Corp. (NYSE: RGS) broker under $10.00 today for the first timethis entire decade. Hair hasn’t stopped growing but in a financialpinch maybe less costly cuts and less product buying is being used.

comsScore Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) broke under $10.00 today for the firsttime since its IPO in late-2006. Paying for web metrics in a recessionmay be used, but the answer to the survey is the same as elsewhere:"The numbers suck, big time!"

Southwest Air (NYSE: LUV) just broke under 410.00 today, prior 52-weeklow of $10.26. The best fuel hedger in the world, now in the same boatas other carriers.

Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX) broke the $10.00 barrier briefly ahead ofearnings on Monday. I did my part to support it this morning andyesterday by buying its coffee, but shares are around $9.50 now.This is basically a decade-low.

Whole Foods (NASDAQ: WFMI) traded under $10.00 last week ahead of andafter earnings, but now "Whole Paycheck" is well under $10.00 at$9.15. The new acronym for the stock is now officially what tradersabbreviate the ticker as: "Whiff Me!"…

The only good news in this is that our weekly "10 Stocks Under $10"newsletter is getting more and more widely held stocks as candidates tobe covered.

Here is a link for the first list of major stocks breaking under $10.00 today or this week.

Jon C. Ogg
November 12, 2008

Posted in HI/LOW, Trading Alert Tagged: LTD, LUV, OMTR, RGS, RSH, SBUX, SCOR, WFMI

Top Pre-Market Analyst Downgrades (ADBE, AMB, BLKB, KO, EMCI, HSII, KFN, OMTR, PLD, VAR, VMW, VMC)

247wallst — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 06:36:21 +0000

These are some of the top downgrades we have seen this Monday morning with about 2 hours until the open:

Adobe Systems (ADBE) Cut to Market Perform at FBR.
AMB Property (AMB) Cut to Sell at Goldman Sachs.
Blackbaud (BLKB) Cut to Market Perform at Wachovia.
Coca-Cola (KO) Cut to Hold at Deutsche Bank.
EMC Insurance (EMCI) Cut to Underperform at KBW.
Heidrick & Struggles (HSII) Cut to Underperform at Baird.
KKR Financial (KFN) Cut to Neutral at JPMorgan.
Omniture (OMTR) Cut to Market Perform at FBR.
ProLogis (PLD) Cut to Sell at Goldman Sachs.
Varian Medical (VAR) Cut to Neutral at JPMorgan.
VMware (VMW) Cut to Market Perform at Wachovia.
Vulcan Materials (VMC) Cut to Sell at Goldman Sachs.

Jon C. Ogg
October 6, 2008

Posted in Analyst Calls Tagged: ADBE, AMB, BLKB, EMCI, HSII, KFN, KO, OMTR, PLD, VAR, VMC, VMW

Top 10 Pre-Market Analyst Calls (AG, HBC, CNH, MEOH, OMTR, PLD, RYAAY, SLM, PCU, VE)

247wallst — Tue, 06 May 2008 06:53:22 +0000

These are the top 10 analyst calls that we are focusing on this Tuesday morning:

AGCO Corp. (NYSE: AG) raised to Overweight at Goldman Sachs.
HSBC Holdings (NYSE: HBC) cut to Neutral at UBS
CNH Global NV (NYSE: CNH) cut to Neutral at Goldman Sachs.
Methanex (NASDAQ: MEOH) raised to Buy at UBS.
Omniture (NASDAQ: OMTR) raised to Buy at Piper Jaffray.
ProLogis (NYSE: PLD) cut to Outperform from Top Pick at RBC Capital Markets.
Ryanair (NASDAQ: RYAAY) cut to Sell from Hold at Deutsche Bank.
SLM Corp (NYSE: SLM) raised to Overweight at Lehman Brothers.
Southern Copper (NYSE: PCU) cut to Neutral at HSBC Securities.
Veolia Environnement (NYSE: VE) Cut To Neutral By JPMorgan.

Jon C, Ogg
May 6, 2008

Top 10 Pre-Market Analyst Calls (BA, OMTR, PAS, RRGB, CRM, PCU, TSM, TEVA, WLP, WX)

247wallst — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 07:09:13 +0000

Below are the top 10 analyst calls we are focusing on this morning:

Boeing (NYSE: BA) raised to Overweight at Morgan Stanley.
Omniture (NASDAQ: OMTR) raised to Buy at Jefferies.
PepsiAmericas (NYSE: PAS) raised to Buy at Deutsche Bank.
Red Robin Gourmet (NASDAQ: RRGB) raised to Overweight at JP Morgan; started as Buy at Jefferies.
Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM) Started At Buy at Broadpoint.
Southern Copper (NYSE: PCU) started as Underweight at JP Morgan.
Taiwan Semiconductor (NYSE: TSM) raised to overweight at Lehman Brothers.
Teva Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: TEVA) cu to Hold at Citigroup.
WellPoint (NYSE: WLP) downgraded to Neutral at Banc Of America.
WuXi PharmaTech (NYSE: WX) raised to Buy at Jefferies.

Jon C. Ogg
March 14, 2008

Key Tech Upgrades & Downgrades (AMCC, CTXS, SCOR, EBAY, FFIV, GRMN, LSI, MFE, MCHP, OMTR, SONS, SYMC, THQI, WDC)

247wallst — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 08:02:46 +0000

Below are some of the key upgrades and downgrades from Wall Street analysts seen in the technology sectors this morning:

Applied Micro (AMCC) raised estimates at Goldman Sachs.
Citrix Systems (CTXS) raised estimates at Goldman Sachs.
comScore (SCOR) started as Outperform at Oppenheimer.
eBay (EBAY) downgraded to Hold from Buy at Citigroup (thanks for that timely call Citi, they might get the most useless call of the week); maintained buy but target lowered to $38 at Goldman Sachs.
F5 Networks (FFIV) raised to Outperform at Baird.
Garmin (GRMN) raised to Outperform at Oppenheimer.
LSI (LSI) raised estimates at Goldman Sachs.
McAfee (MFE) raised to Buy at Citigroup; raised to Outperform at Bear Stearns.
Microchip Tech (MCHP) raised to Outperform at Morgan Keegan.
Omniture (OMTR) started as Outperform at Oppenheimer.
Sonus Networks (SONS) raised to Buy at Cantor Fitzgerald.
Symantec (SYMC) raised estimates at Goldman Sachs.
THQ Inc. (THQI) downgraded to Sell at Broadpoint.
Western Digital (WDC) raised to Buy at Deutsche Bank; estimates raised at Goldman Sachs.

Jon C. Ogg
January 24, 2008