24/7 Wall St. » SCHL

24/7 Wall St. Closing Bell (CSCO, FSLR, SI, BRCM, AFFY, DFS, FDX, PIR, SCHL, WGO, SONO, NVLS, GEVO, ZOLL, BPAX, PEIX)

Paul Ausick — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 21:05:03 +0000

US markets opened fast this morning, up nearly 1% in the first hour of trading before giving most of the gain back by mid-morning and then wandering around a gain of less than 0.5% for the rest of the day. Better manufacturing data from Europe, and solid manufacturing gains in the US helped the market in the early going. The US dollar was down against the euro, the yen, and the British pound. Crude oil prices fell today, with WTI down more than -1.5% at $93.44/barrel and Brent down about -0.9% at $103.33. Gold continued its slide as well today, down more than -1% at $1,568.80/ounce.

The unofficial closing bells put the DJIA up nearly 47 points to 11,869.95 (0.39%), the NASDAQ rose nearly 2 points (0.07%) to 2,541.01, and the S&P 500 rose 0.33% or about 4 points to 1,215.83.

There were several analyst upgrades and downgrades today, including Cisco Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO) started as ‘buy’ at Nomura. Other ratings actions today include First Solar Inc. (NASDAQ: FSLR) cut from ‘buy’ to ‘neutral’ at R.W. Baird; Siemens AG (NYSE: SI) cut from ‘buy’ to ‘neutral’ at Goldman Sachs; Broadcom Corp. (NASDAQ: BRCM) raised to ‘outperform’ at Wells Fargo; and Affymetrix Inc. (NASDAQ: AFFY) raised from ‘neutral’ to ‘buy’ at Goldman Sachs.

Here are today’s post-earnings news reactions with prices during the last half-hour of trading: Discover Financial Services (NYSE: DFS) is down -3.2% at $23.06; FedEx Corp. (NYSE: FDX) is up almost 8% at $83.45; Pier 1 Imports, Inc. (NYSE: PIR) is up 0.23% at $13.17; Scholastic Corp. (NASDAQ: SCHL) is up more than 4% at $26.73; and Winnebago Industries, Inc. (NYSE: WGO) is down -0.15% at $6.80.

Other standouts from today include the following stocks:

SonoSite Inc. (NASDAQ: SONO) is up more than 27% at $53.68, a new 52-week high. The ultrasound device maker has been acquired by Japan’s Fujifilm Holdings Inc. for $54/share, or about $995 million. Our coverage is here.

Novellus Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: NVLS) is up more than 17% at $40.68, after posting a new 52-week high of $42.50 earlier today. The semiconductor equipment maker is being acquired by Lam Research Corp. (NASDAQ: LRCX) for $3.3 billion in an all-stock deal. More coverage here.

Gevo Inc. (NASDAQ: GEVO) is up more than 13.5% at $6.41. The biofuel and chemical company signed an agreement with The Coca-Cola Co. (NYSE: KO) to develop a new bio-derived plastic bottle.

Zoll Medical Corp. (NASDAQ: ZOLL) is up more than 29% at $60.47, after posting a new 52-week high earlier today of $63.86. The medical device maker’s wearable defibrillator has been re-affirmed for Medicare coverage.

BioSante Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: BPAX) is down more than -77% at $0.48, after posting a new 52-week low of $0.46 earlier today. The biopharmaceutical company reported that its experimental drug to enhance libido in post-menopausal women failed a late-stage trial.

Pacific Ethanol Inc. (NASDAQ: PEIX) is down nearly -18% at $0.87. The ethanol maker announced the completion of a sale of about 12.6 million shares and warrants to 11 private investors for just over $8 million in cash.

Stay tuned for Friday. Chicago Federal Reserve Bank President Charles Evans and Dallas Federal Reserve Bank President Richard Fisher are speaking tomorrow. Here is another other noteworthy event on the schedule (all times Eastern):

8:30 a.m. – Consumer price index for November released

Paul Ausick

Filed under: HI/LOW, Market Close Tagged: AFFY, BPAX, BRCM, CSCO, DFS, FDX, FSLR, GEVO, NVLS, PEIX, PIR, SCHL, SI, SONO, WGO, ZOLL

Yu-Gi-Oh Starts Buying 4Kids Stock (KDE, SCHL)

247wallst — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 14:22:59 +0000

4Kids Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE: KDE) must have gotten tired of seeing its stock hitting new near-term lows in its stock prices. The entertainment company which has the US rights to Yu-Gi-Oh ™ and rights to TMNT ™, Cabbage Patch Kids ™, and more has approved a share buyback plan of up to 1 million shares of its common stock through December 31, 2008. This only represents $11.5 million dollars or so today, but the market cap for the company is only $154 million.

Interestingly enough, this one just recently started coming through on certain value investing stock screens based upon its balance sheet and the stock recently hitting 52-week lows making the company’s market cap closer and closer to its tangible book value.

4Kids still has spotty earnings, so using a hard book value isn’t the greatest measurement out there. That being said, as of its September 30 balance sheet it only has $23.6 million in total liabilities and its total assets were listed as $172.5 million. Normally we’d back out the goodwill and other intangibles and look at this with having real assets of roughly $135 million, but because of the name kid franchises it has we actually think the goodwill and intangibles are possibly understated.

We were briefly evaluating this one as a candidate in recent days for our Special Situation Investing Newsletter, but the fairly low trading volume may keep this at bay. 24/7 Wall St. does believe that it has an under-leveraged balance sheet, although the spotty earnings and cash flows currently and expected ahead are the reasons for that.

Scholastic Corp. (NASDAQ:SCHL) did a similar move in recent months where we called "Harry Potter an investor" after the company announced its own share repurchase program. Its stock has since come back down, but it ran sharply after its buyback announcement.

For the right buyer this would offer some extreme value under the rightcircumstances. But it is definitely not a given that the company’sstock will be the assured beneficiary. 4Kids stock is up over 4% today at $11.75 after the news, and its 52-week trading range is $11.18 to $20.31. This did hit a new 52-week low this morning at $10.72 before recovering and this has a short interest of 815,000 shares as of the latest data.

Jon C. Ogg
December 4, 2007

Pre-Market Stock News (July 19, 2007)

247wallst — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 07:23:13 +0000

(AMTD) TD Ameritrade trading up 1% after beating and raising target.
(AVCI) Avici Systems trading up 29% on higher revenue guidance after earnings.
(BAC) $1.28 EPS vs $1.20 estimate.
(CAL) Continental $2.10 vs 1.84 estimate.
(CTXS) Citrix trading up 11% after beating revenues and two upgrades so far.
(EBAY) eBay trading down 1% after beating earnings, but lower listings.
(F) Ford bids due today for Rover and Jaguar units.
(HOG) Harley Davidson $0.14 EPS vs $0.13 estimate.
(IBM) IBM traded up 4% after beating earnings.
(JNPR) Juniper Networks trading up 8% after earnings and upgrade.
(LOGI) Logitech $0.14 EPS vs $0.16e.
(NAFC) Nash Finch $0.70 EPS vs $0.63 estimate.
(MOT) Motorola $0.02 EPS vs $0.00 estimate, but had already lowered.
(SAP) SAP trading up 8% after earnings rose 8% and a gain in market share.
(SCHL) Scholastic Corp. $0.93 EPS vs $1.02 estimate; sees 2008 $2.35-2.85 vs. $2.67 estimate.
(SPWR) SunPower $0.25 EPS vs $0.21e; down from $0.29 last year.
(UNH) UnitedHealth $0.87 vs $0.81 estimate.
(UNP) Union Pacific $1.65 EPS vs $1.62 estimate.
(VMC) Vulcan Materials lowerials lowered guidance.
(WIT) Wipro $0.12 EPS vs $0.12e.
(WMT) Wal-Mart is reportedly interested in acquiring China’s largest retailer Beijing Hualian, although companies have denied this.

Jon C. Ogg
July 19, 2007

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

Goldman Sachs Research Summary (June 5, 2007)

247wallst — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 07:39:09 +0000

Bed Bath & Beyond (BBBY) downgraded from Buy to Neutral.

Earnings estimates Raised: Aracruz Celulose S.A. (ARA), Sappi Ltd. (SPP), Celanese (CE). Earnings estimates Cut: XTO Energy (XTO).

Weyerhaeueser (WY) was pretty decent estimate hike. Goldman raised its 2007 EPS target to $1.40 from $1.20 and raised 2008 EPS from $2.05 to $2.40. Domtar (UFS) was added to the Americas Conviction Buy List and raised estimates for 2007 from $0.40 to $0.55 and 2008 from $0.55 to $0.75.

After the Scholastic (SCHL) share buyback plan, Goldman raised the 2008 EPS target from $2.50 to $2.65 based on the 14% share count drop.

(CCK) Crown Holdings removed from Americas Conviction Buy List to make room for Domtar (UFS) to go on.

Jon C. Ogg
June 5, 2007

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

Scholastic: Would Harry Potter Already Take Profits? (SCHL)

247wallst — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 12:30:24 +0000

Scholastic Corp. (SCHL-NASDAQ) is up more than 13% after announcing the $200 million accelerated share buyback plan after the close on Friday. This is always a tough decision, but what do you do when almost your entire goal and entire expectation of a trade is reached in a sinle day? The answer is usually, "take the money, jump on your magic broom, and fly off to the bank."

We surmized that Harry Potter was buying Scholastic (SCHL) stock with the news on Friday because it looks like most of the Harry Potter profits from this book release are being put to use to repurchase shares to shrink the float. On a fully diluted equal basis, by reducing the float by 14% and if everything else remains entirely static then you could imply a theoretical 13% to 17% expected stock move depending on your math. Of course, the world isn’t static and the opinions of the impact on shares from buybacks varies as much as the opinions on the Harry Potter craze.

With shares up more than 13% at $36.95 and with it hitting a new 52-week high of $37.30 today and with the shares already up in that estimated ‘stock impact range,’ it would be hard to imagine that Harry Potter himself would be doing anything other than hopping onto his Nimbus 2000 and flying off to the bank.

Jon C. Ogg
June 4, 2007

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

Harry Potter, The Stock Investor (SCHL)

247wallst — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 07:01:00 +0000

Scholastic Corp. (SCHL-NASDAQ) made an announcement after Friday’s close that the company was starting a $200 million accelerated share buyback plan via Deutsche Bank. The company expects to repurchase an estimated 14% of its currently outstanding common stock.

It looks like the company is using all of its Harry Potter profits to buyback and retire its stock, so in a sense the publisher is having Harry Potter user his allowance buy stock in Scholastic Corp. The stock closed up 2% at $32.51 on Friday and was basically unchanged in after-hours trading. The 52-week trading range is $24.99 to $37.08.

Amazon.com announced that it has already secured 1 Million pre-orders on May 8 for the last Harry Potter novel called "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows." Amazon has reduced its price from $18.99 to $17.99, which is supposed to be a 49% discount. This was after 95 days of pre-orders, and Amazon said it took 174 days for the sixth Harry Potter book.

So, Scholastic is already counting its chips. Does anyone really believe that this will be the last Harry Potter novel?

Jon C. Ogg
June 2, 2007

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