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Top Analyst Upgrades & Downgrades (AAPL, SCHW, ETN, ETFC, FFIV, HBAN, LNKD, MJN, PIR, GOLD, SBAC, AMTD, TYC, DIS, BAC, C, JPM)

Administrator — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 12:09:10 +0000

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

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) Cut to Neutral at BTIG.

The Charles Schwab Corporation (NYSE: SCHW) Started as Neutral at Goldman Sachs.

Eaton Corporation (NYSE: ETN) named the value stock of the day at Zacks.

E*TRADE Financial Corporation (NASDAQ: ETFC) Started as Neutral at Goldman Sachs.

F5 Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ: FFIV) Cut to Hold at Stifel Nicolaus.

Huntington Bancshares Incorporated (NASDAQ: HBAN) Reiterated Neutral at Zacks.

LinkedIn Corporation (NYSE: LNKD) Started as Hold at Needham.

Mead Johnson Nutrition Company (NYSE: MJN) Reiterated Outperform with $82 target at Credit Suisse.

Pier 1 Imports Inc. (NYSE: PIR) Maintained Hold but raised estimates at Argus.

Randgold Resources Limited (NASDAQ: GOLD) Raised to Buy at Stifel Nicolaus.

SBA Communications Corporation (NASDAQ: SBAC) Raised to Buy at Citigroup.

TD Ameritrade Holding Corporation (NASDAQ: AMTD) Started as Neutral at Goldman Sachs.

Tyco International Ltd. (NYSE: TYC) Raised to Buy at Argus.

Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS) Cut to Neutral at Citigroup.

Credit Suisse has previewed top banks and noted on Bank of America Corporation (NYSE: BAC), Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C), and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM): “We look BAC, C and JPM to benefit from improved trading in 1Q.” The firm talked up loan growth and demand and sees attractive valuations with improved profitability and greater capital deployment.

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JON C. OGG

Filed under: Analyst Calls Tagged: AAPL, AMTD, BAC, C, DIS, ETFC, ETN, FFIV, gold, HBAN, JPM, LNKD, MJN, PIR, SBAC, SCHW, TYC

Top Analyst Upgrades & Downgrades (AAPL, BLK, BWLD, COH, CPO, GM, KBH, KR, MSFT, MS, NTRS, RHT, SBAC, SNV, AMTD, VE)

Administrator — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 12:19:20 +0000

These are some of this Friday’s top analyst upgrades, downgrades, and initiations seen in Wall Street research calls.

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) has seen targets raised this morning by Oppenheimer to $700 and by UBS to $675; see the strange downgrade from Thursday.

BlackRock, Inc. (NYSE: BLK) Cut to Hold at Deutsche Bank.

Buffalo Wild Wings, Inc. (NASDAQ: BWLD) Cut to Neutral at Wedbush.

Coach. Inc. (NYSE: COH) Raised estimates and target to $83 from $75 at Credit Suisse; Started as Buy with $90 target at Argus.

Corn Products International Inc. (NYSE: CPO) named as Value stock of the day at Zacks.

General Motors Co. (NYSE: GM) Cut target to $29 from $30 at Jefferies.

KB Home (NYSE: KBH) named Bear of the Day at Zacks.

The Kroger Company (NYSE: KR) named as Bull of the Day at Zacks.

Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) Raised to Buy with $39 target at Argus.

Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) Cut to Hold at Deutsche Bank.

Northern Trust Corporation (NASDAQ: NTRS) Started as Neutral with $49 target at BofA/ML.

Red Hat Inc. (NYSE: RHT) Cut to Equal-weight at Morgan Stanley.

SBAC Communications Corporation (NASDAQ: SBAC) named as Top Pick at Credit Suisse.

Synovus Financial Corporation (NYSE: SNV) Cut to Neutral at Credit Suisse.

TD Ameritrade Holding Corporation (NASDAQ: AMTD) Cut to Hold at Deutsche Bank.

Veolia Environnement (NYSE: VE) Raised to Neutral from Sell at UBS.

JON C. OGG

Filed under: 24/7 Wall St. Wire, Analyst Calls Tagged: AAPL, AMTD, BLK, BWLD, COH, CPO, GM, KBH, KR, MS, MSFT, NTRS, RHT, SBAC, SNV, VE

Comcast Brings New Competition Into Towers Space (CMCSA, AMT, CCI, SBAC)

Administrator — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 14:02:14 +0000

Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ: CMCSA) has formed a new portfolio company out of its Comcast Ventures unit that will own and operate telecommunications towers throughout the United States. The company is called CTI Towers, Inc. and it will be new competition for the likes of American Tower Corporation (NYSE: AMT), Crown Castle International Corporation (NYSE: CCI) and SBA Communications Corporation (NASDAQ: SBAC).

CTI Towers is said to be launching with approximately 800 towers that were previously owned and operated by Comcast Cable subsidiaries. The unit will actively lease tower space to wireless operators and other tenants.

This may be noise to some and may be common sense to others. If the company already had the towers as is, then it is only logical. American Tower Corporation (NYSE: AMT) also probably knew this was coming. Comcast named Anthony Peduto as the CEO of CTI Towers, and he has prior experience as the COO of Optasite (which was in the acquisition and development of telecommunications tower sites) and he was also Vice President of the West and Northeast regions of none other than American Tower Corporation.

Comcast has an extensive network and this seems to be only a continuation of how to add some revenues and profits on top of existing infrastructure that was already in place.

American Tower is worth nearly $22 billion in market value today. Its global solutions include over 37,000 towers (about 25,000 in America), 2,300+ managed rooftops, in-building and outdoor Distributed Antenna System networks. American Tower is also reorganizing into a REIT as well, indicating that the company will be shelling out almost all of its income as dividends.

Crown Castle International Corporation (NYSE: CCI) is worth just over $12 billion. It said on its most recent release that it owns, operates, and manages more than 22,000 U.S. sites (in 92 of the top 100 markets) and about 1,600 wireless communication sites in Australia.

At SBA Communications Corporation (NASDAQ: SBAC), it owned 9,290 tower sites and also noted that it manages or leases approximately 5,200 actual or potential communications sites as of March 31, 2011. SBA’s value is put around $4 billion.

Putting a raw value on a new unit with assets in place but without the knowledge of who will be customers is difficult to do immediately. A ballpark of value add could be as little as $500 million or as much as $2 billion, but those numbers would be highly subjective and the true valuation could fluctuate wildly from source to source. Comcast currently has a market capitalization of more than $61 billion.

JON C. OGG

Filed under: Cable Companies, Telecom, WiMAX, Wireless Tagged: AMT, CCI, CMCSA, SBAC

Huge Twist in Cell Tower Wars: Tax Accounting Issues from the SEC (AMT, CCI, SBAC)

Administrator — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 13:45:45 +0000

American Tower Corporation (NYSE: AMT) and Crown Castle International Corp. (NYSE: CCI) are the two major players in the world of cellphone towers. Go ahead and include 4G too. This morning is not looking very promising for American Tower after it filed an 8-K disclosure with the SEC that disclosed an SEC inquiry. We would have normally issued “The Mr. Dumas Accounting Award” to American Tower but the disclosure offers such little disclosure and detail that there is no way to know what it really means.

What is odd is how small the disclosure was. American Tower stated:

On June 2, 2011, American Tower Corporation received a subpoena from the United States Securities and Exchange Commission requesting certain documents from 2007 through the present, including in particular documents related to the Company’s tax accounting and reporting. The Company intends to cooperate fully with the SEC with respect to its request.

Shares of American Tower are down 6.2% at $51.02 on more than 1 million shares in less than the first five minutes of trading. The 52-week trading range is $41.26 to $56.84 and the consensus Thomson Reuters price target is just above $60.00. Analysts are likely to be out with downgrades or with “temporary exceptions” in the research coverage. Unfortunately, the time frame is wide enough and the disclosure is vague enough that no one outside of the company will yet be able to make determinations or opinions.

Shares of rival Crown Castle are down a bit in sympathy with a drop of just over 1.5% at $40.95. The smaller player is SBA Communications Corp. (NASDAQ: SBAC) and its shares are down 1.5% at $38.19. American Tower is now worth about $20 billion after the haircut in its market cap, while Crown Castle’s market cap is almost $12 billion. SBA Communications has a market cap of only about $4 billion.

There is an old rule of thumb that many investors heed. When accounting irregularities or large accounting questions arise, look for opportunity elsewhere. American Tower shares were down over 8% pre-market… Even after about 20 years of reading news releases and financial statements, it is amazing how so few words can have such a big impact.

JON C. OGG

Filed under: Accounting, SEC, Shareholder Issues, Telecom, WiMAX, Wireless Tagged: AMT, CCI, SBAC

Cramer’s Technology Tsunami Picks for 2010 (GOOG, AAPL, AMT, CCI, SBAC, SWKS, ALTR, CY, XLNX, AMZN, CSCO, ERTS, QCOM, INTC)

247wallst — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 23:49:44 +0000

Tonight on CNBC’s MAD MONEY, Jim Cramer continued with his stock picks for 2010 based on investment themes. We have already seen energy shortage picks, counter-terrorism and homeland security picks, and international ADR picks; and tonight Cramer gave his high-hope technology picks in the “tech tsunami” theme for 2010. First, Cramer denies that a war between Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) and Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) will only have one winner. Other mobile web build-out and expansion winners as theme stock picks for 2010 are American Tower Corp. (NYSE: AMT), Crown Castle International Corp. (NYSE: CCI), SBA Communications Corp. (NASDAQ: SBAC), Skyworks Solutions Inc. (NASDAQ: SWKS), Altera Corporation (NASDAQ: ALTR), Cypress Semiconductor Corporation (NYSE: CY), Xilinx inc. (NASDAQ: XLNX), Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN), Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAD: CSCO) that is now deep into wireless and in advanced communications. Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS), QUALCOMM Inc. (NASDAQ: QCOM), and Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC).

Many of these stocks share the notion that they are close to 52-week highs and some are close to 2008 highs. This list is also somewhat different than the list given in our “top picks from everyone” linking to a December 8, 2009 story with TheStreet.com’s top tech picks for 2010. A brief note on each stock and the reason Cramer likes these follows herein.

On the smartphone war between Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) for Android and Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) for iPhone is actually a phony war where these companies will make money. Cramer even went as far to say that Lady Gaga had more insight than most analysts covering this. Cramer noted that even in 2013, less than half of the phone market will be smartphones despite 256 million units being expected to sell in 2010. Cramer thinks these companies have major room in the smartphone as there is room for far more than one player here. Cramer thinks that Apple’s iPhone is not just another iPod and has much upside. Google’s phone will just promote its core business and he thinks that Google will still go to $750 at the end of 2010 and Apple will still go to $300.00. Cramer’s notion is that this is a bad romance rather than a war.

The bandwidth solutions are tower plays, which will be much more needed, are American Tower Corp. (NYSE: AMT), Crown Castle International Corp. (NYSE: CCI) and SBA Communications Corp. (NASDAQ: SBAC). As far as components, Skyworks Solutions Inc. (NASDAQ: SWKS) is a winner in amplifiers for boosting signals that are needed. Semiconductor winners for the mobile internet expansion will be Altera Corporation (NASDAQ: ALTR), Cypress Semiconductor Corporation (NYSE: CY) and Xilinx inc. (NASDAQ: XLNX). Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) is not associated with the mobile internet, but it is becoming the cheap sale destination online and has the Kindle e-reader. Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) is one that Cramer has already been very ambitious on with a $216.00 target.

Cramer’s backbone of the internet pick is Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO) that is now deep into wireless and in advanced communications. Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS) is a 2010 pick on its Playfish acquisition for social gaming, which is now for mobile gaming as well. QUALCOMM Inc. (NASDAQ: QCOM) is another pick that makes the web faster for 3G and 4G and it has the brains for the smartphone and some smart-books. Lastly, Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC) is also going to be a winner because of its chip lineup and its number of quarters. He thinks it is going to have a monster quarter.

I would like to personally invite you to join in with the thousands of readers on our free daily email distribution list from 24/7 Wall St. to hear about ongoing day trader and options trader alerts, analyst upgrades and downgrades, stock and market rumors, Buffett and guru investor news, M&A and IPOs, and more.

CRAMER’S OTHER 2010 THEME STOCK PICKS FROM THIS WEEK ARE AS FOLLOWS:

Cramer’s “Going Global” top ADRs for 2010
Cramer’s Energy Shortage Stocks for 2010
Cramer’s Homeland Security and Anti-Terrorism Stocks

JON C. OGG
JANUARY 7, 2010

Posted in Analyst Calls, Cramer, Internet, Semiconductor, Technology Companies, Telecom, Video Games, WiMAX, Wireless Tagged: AAPL, ALTR, AMT, AMZN, CCI, CSCO, CY, ERTS, GOOG, INTC, QCOM, SBAC, SWKS, XLNX

SBA Raising Cash After Revenue Target (SBAC)

247wallst — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 12:26:32 +0000

SBA Communications Corp. (SBAC) has made two announcements this morning which could have an impact on shareholders. First, it reaffirmed its March quarter revenue targets of $132.0 million to $136.0 million, and Thomson Reuters estimates are $135 million. The company has also moved to raise cash via the sale of convertible senior notes.

SBA intends to offer some $350 million of convertible senior notes due October 2014 under a 144A private placement offering to institutions. SBA also expects to grant the initial purchasers an option to purchase up to $50 million of additional notes to cover over-allotments. Prior to July 22, 2014, the notes will be convertible at agreed to terms.

The company also intends to use a portion of the offering proceeds to enter into convertible note hedge transactions to reduce the potential dilution to the common stock with an initial strike price of roughly 180% of the price at the time of the offering. This will also replace a hedging transaction from 2007.

We have not seen any trade indications, but $350 million compares to a market cap of $3.12 billion and compares to total debt of over $2.548 billion and total liabilities of $2.719 billion.

Jon C. Ogg
April 20, 2009

Posted in Earnings, Secondary Offering, Telecom, Wireless Tagged: SBAC

Top Analyst Downgrades (AMT, AXA, NILE, CA, FDS, IBM, IBKR, ICE, NOVL, SBAC, VIA)

247wallst — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 12:33:37 +0000

These are the top analyst downgrades and cautious calls we have seen from Wall Street analysts this Monday morning:

American Tower (AMT) Cut to Sector Perform at RBC.
AXA (AXA) Cut to Underweight at JPMorgan.
Blue Nile (NILE) Cut to Hold at Citigroup.
CA Inc. (CA) Cut to Hold at Jefferies.
FactSet (FDS) Started as Sell at Auriga.
IBM (IBM) Cut to Hold at Canaccord Adams.
Interactive Brokers (IBKR) Cut to Underperform at KBW.
IntercontinentalExchange (ICE) Cut to Underperform at KBW.
Novell (NOVL) Cut to Hold at Jefferies.
SBA Communications (SBAC) Cut to Sector Perform at RBC.
Viacom (VIA) Cut to Equal Weight at Barclays.

JON C. OGG

Posted in Analyst Calls Tagged: AMT, AXA, CA, FDS, IBKR, IBM, ICE, NILE, NOVL, SBAC, VIA

Towers Raised at RBC (AMT, CCI, SBAC)

247wallst — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 07:05:23 +0000

This morning we have seen an upgrade in the communications towers sector.

RBC Capital Markets took the entire group from a Sector Perform rating to a higher Outperform rating.

Among the stocks raised were American Tower (NYSE: AMT), Crown Castle (NYSE: CCI), and SBA Communications (NASDAQ: SBAC).

Jon C. Ogg
July 3, 2008

Downgrading The Towers Sector (AMT, CCI, SBAC)

247wallst — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 07:04:22 +0000

RBC Capital Markets has issued a downgrade of the cellular and mobile tower sector this morning, which looks like it will weigh somewhat on the shares in the group. Its prior weighting was "Outperform" in the group, and these three stocks were lowered to a "Sector Perform" rating:

American Tower (NYSE: AMT); stock indicated down over 1%.
Crown Castle (NYSE: CCI); stock indicated down 1%.
SBA Communications (NASDAQ: SBAC); stock indicated down almost 1%.

Most of these stocks were very close to 52-week highs, so this is a group to watch in pre-market trading as we get closer to the open.

Jon C. Ogg
June 4, 2008

Top 10 Pre-Market Analyst Calls (AMT, CCI, SBAC, BEAV, GWR, HOLX, SWY, KNOT, MDCO, UBS, VCLK)

247wallst — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 07:23:01 +0000

Below are the top 10 pre-market analyst we are looking at this Thursday morning:

American Tower (NYSE: AMT), Crown Castle (NYSE: CCI), and SBA Communications (NASDAQ: SBAC) all initiated as BUY at Jefferies.
Baidu.com (NASDAQ: BIDU) raised to Outperform at RBC Capital.
BE Aerospace (NASDAQ: BEAV) downgraded to Neutral from Buy at UBS.
Gennesee & Wyoming (NYSE: GWR) raised to Outperform at Bear Stearns.
Hologic (NASDAQ: HOLX) started as Buy at Sun Trust Robinson Humphrey.
Safeway (NYSE: SWY) raised to Neutral from Sell at UBS.
The Knot (NASDAQ: KNOT) downgraded to Neutral at JPMorgan.
The Medicines Co. (NASDAQ: MDCO) raised to Buy from Hold at Citigroup.
UBS (NYSE: UBS) downgraded to Hold from Buy at Deutsche Bank.
ValueClick (NASDAQ: VCLK) raised to Outperform at Robert W. Baird.

Jon C. Ogg
February 14, 2008