For the full year, Pandora sees revenues up in a range of $420 million to $427 million versus its prior forecast of $410 million to $420 million.  Its non-GAAP loss is now put in a range of -$0.11 to -$0.07 versus a prior range of -$0.16 to -$0.11 per share. Part of Pandora’s growth is due to a larger buildup of its sales force to better compete in advertising.

One issue that Pandora still faces is higher content costs.  As it grows in reach and listening, its expenses rise in a what is effectively a straight line.

SIRIUS XM Radio Inc. (NASDAQ: SIRI) is in a potential disarray after a large share sale by CEO Mel Karmazin that may actually help John Malone and Liberty Media Corporation (NASDAQ: LMCA) in its quest to take it over while Karmazin is publicly trying to defend the company against Malone’s efforts.

Pandora is up 18% at $12.22 in the pre-open session and this would generate an implied market capitalization rate of $2 billion.  That is valuing Pandora at 4.7-times revenue expectations for 2012.  SIRIUS XM is worth some $7.56 billion in market value, but it trades at only about $2.25-times revenue expectations of $3.37 billion for 2012.  Another difference between these two companies is that SIRIUS XM is profitable and it has a lot of exclusive content that Pandora does not have.

It is hard to think that things might be making a good turn at Pandora due to its cost structure, but that is what the market vote is with real trading and investing dollars this Thursday.

JON C. OGG

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) was a large gain by Appaloosa Management, with a gain of more than 500,000 shares up to 685,000 shares worth some $303 million. This of course was worth more in April. Farallon put up a new position of just over 192,000 worth some $116 million. Janus only lowered its stake by 0.5% and Apple is still its largest holding at over $3.8 billion, while Vanguard lifted its stake by about 5% worth over $23 billion.

Caesars Entertainment Corporation (NASDAQ: CZR) was a strange position on the surface, but easy to explain later. Paulson & Co. was shown to have lifted its stake to 12.37 million shares from NO SHARES at the end of 2011. The problem is that Paulson owned Caesars shares already before the IPO but it was not public before the end of 2011.

Computer Sciences Corporation (NYSE: CSC) was a 2.4 million share stake by Greenlight Capital (under David Einhorn) worth $72 million, and that was a new position. With an activism flare, maybe this can light some fire under what has been a dead tech-value stock. Another firm, Highbridge Capital Management LLC, added more than 1 million shares as a new position in the first quarter.

DaVita Inc. (NYSE: DVA) was a key addition of Warren Buffett’s Ted Weschler who grew his stake to 6,000,000 from almost 2.7 million shares. This was a doubling of the stake, but we would note that this stock has slid 10% since the end of the quarter. The overall position may be closer to break-even here, but this has a huge portion of the kidney dialysis market as of today.

Dollar General Corporation (NYSE: DG) was a surprise for us considering that we thought Warren Buffett’s new manager Todd Coombs would have added to this position rather than cutting it. Maybe the valuation premium just became too much. The March 31 stake was 3.63 million shares versus the 4.497 million shares at the end of 2011.

El Paso Corporation (NYSE: EP) saw more than one move higher. Farallon Capital added another 50% or so to end with 22.49 million shares worth $235 million in the first quarter; Paulson & Co. doubled its stake in the first quarter to 8 million shares worth over $118 million.

Encana Corporation (NYSE: ECA) is a standout because it looks small, but it is a good whale watching stock. BP Capital’s T. Boone Pickens initiated a new position of more than 1.13 million shares worth some $22.3 million.

Express Scripts Holding Co. (NASDAQ: ESRX) was a very large gain by Farallon Capital, where the position rose to over 5.65 million shares as of March 31 from only 1.17 million shares at the end of 2011. Paulson & Co. also doubled its stake in the first quarter to 3.24 million shares worth over $87 million shares. With the merger now closed, others have been looking at this despite Walgreen’s issues.

General Motors Co. (NYSE: GM) was another new position of 10 million shares worth more than $250 million. Frankly, we might have guess that Ford would have been chosen. Is it possible that this was a “politically motivated or influenced” as Buffett is such a supporter of Obama? That admittedly seems like a stretch, but if we were looking for auto exposure it would have probably been with Ford.

SIRIUS XM Radio Inc. (NASDAQ: SIRI) saw SAC Capital grow from only over 3 million shares at the end of 2011 to 98.2 million shares worth almost $217 million in the first quarter, SAC wheels and deals in shares all the time, so they could have been in and out of a lot more or less shares before, during, and after that point.

Skyworks Solutions Inc. (NASDAQ: SWKS) scored a new large stake in the first quarter by Maverick Capital. The new holdings came to over 5.8 million shares worth some $161 million at the end of the quarter, likely as an “Apple play.”

United Continental Holdings (NYSE: UAL) was hard not to miss in the whale hunting as well as Appaloosa grew its position by 500% or so up to over 7.9 million shares worth over $146 million.

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JON C. OGG

24/7 Wall St. screened out selective short interest data with the latest changes from the settlement date of April 30, 2012 versus the prior April 13, 2012 in shares of the following: Alcatel Lucent S.A. (NYSE: ALU); Banco Santander, S.A. (NYSE: STD); Bank of America Corporation (NYSE: BAC); Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS); Dendreon Corporation (NASDAQ: DNDN); Diamond Foods, Inc. (NASDAQ: DMND); First Solar, Inc. (NASDAQ: FSLR); Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Inc. (NASDAQ: GMCR); Groupon, Inc. (NASDAQ: GRPN); Human Genome Sciences, Inc. (NASDAQ: HGSI); LinkedIn Corporation (NYSE: LNKD); Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX); RadioShack Corporation (NYSE: RSH); Research in Motion Limited (NASDAQ: RIMM); and Sirius XM Radio Inc. (NASDAQ: SIRI).   Does this make for a “Short-Sell in May and go away!” theme?  The short interest changes are for the April 13 versus March 30 settlement dates, with selective color added if applicable:   Alcatel Lucent S.A. (NYSE: ALU) saw another rise in the short interest but this gain was massive by over 25% to 28.67 million shares in the short interest.  Based on its earnings botch, the short sellers made some real money here.

Banco Santander, S.A. (NYSE: STD) is not one of our usual short interest names but investors are back to betting against Spain and the PIIGS all over again now that austerity measures are being fought publicly.  The prior gain was a whopping 214% gain in the short interest to 55.7 million shares and the newest gain was only 2.5% to 57.1 million shares.

Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) is back to seeing a rise in the short interest after a prior drop.  Short sellers lifted the short interest by 9.9% to 142.3 million shares.

Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS) saw a small increase ion its short interest, which you know helped to exacerbate that pop from the Microsoft deal while activist investors press on here.  The short interest rose another 3.7% to 19.768 million shares.

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO) warns about the economy as it releases earnings. (Reuters)

Regulators may make mortgage lenders charge a flat fee to help home buyers. (WSJ)

Pfizer (NYSE: PFE) will give less marketing support to Lipitor as it moves to a generic form. (WSJ)

The Post Office backs away from a plan to close 3,700 rural offices. (WSJ)

Fannie Mae posts its best results since its bailout and made $2.7 billion. (WSJ)

The European Union delays a bailout payment to Greece as political turmoil there rises. (WSJ)

Spain may get a break on budget deficits from EU partners, who will give it more leeway to recover. (WSJ)

Weak imports raise China’s April trade deficit. (WSJ)

Chrysler will try to improve its battered quality reputation. (WSJ)

Liberty Media (NASDAQ: LMCA) increases its share of Sirius XM Radio (NASDAQ: SIRI) as it tries to gain control. (WSJ)

New Facebook government documents show it is weak in mobile ads. (WSJ)

Corporate borrowing makes the debt crisis in Spain worse. (NYT)

Third Point insists that Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) name an interim CEO. (NYT)

News Corp. (NASDAQ: NWS) doubles its share buyback to $10 billion. (FT)

MetroPCS (NYSE: PCS) may tie up with T-Mobile. (FT)

Sony predicts a profit this year. (Bloomberg)

Douglas A. McIntyre

GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE: GSK) will launch a takeover of Human Genome Sciences (NASDAQ: HGSI). (Reuters)

Toyota (NYSE: TM) says its profits will triple this year. (Reuters)

Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) director Patti Hart will leave the board as part of a scandal about CEO Scott Thompson’s resume. (Reuters)

A California judge rejects a suit by Proview that claims Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) bought the iPad name from the company for too little money. (Reuters)

Nelson Peltz’s Trian Fund will buy 7% of Ingersoll-Rand (NYSE: IR). (WSJ)

Freddie Mac picks former E*Trade (NASDAQ: ETFC) executive Donald Layton to be its CEO. (WSJ)

Chesapeake Energy (NYSE: CHK) is under fire for the use of private jets by its board and management. (WSJ)

The founder of Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (NASDAQ: GMCR), Robert Stiller, and its lead director, William Davis, are demoted because of stock sales. (WSJ)

Liberty Media (NASDAQ: LMCA) increases its share of Sirius XM Radio (NASDAQ: SIRI) to 45.2% in an attempt to control the company. (WSJ)

The United States presses India to buy less oil from Iran. (WSJ)

Research In Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM) appoints Kristian Tear as chief operating officer and Frank Boulben as chief marketing officer. (WSJ)

T-Mobile may offer some video streaming without charging it against customer data plans. (WSJ)

JP Morgan (NYSE: JPM) will offer prepaid debit cards in its 5,541 branches this summer, a way to increase money from customer fees. (WSJ)

Germany is likely to force Greece to honor obligations for a bailout or leave the eurozone. (NYT)

Hackers attack U.S. natural gas pipelines. (FT)

A Moody’s downgrade of major banks may hurt the financial recovery of the European Union as it throttles back the ability of the financial firms to lend. (FT)

Germany’s Federal Statistics Office says the nation’s exports rose in March. (Bloomberg)

Political factions in Ireland may try to reject austerity as their counterparts in Greece have. (Bloomberg)

Douglas A. McIntyre

Liberty owns roughly 40% of the company if it were to convert its notes into shares and this dates back to the peak of the market selling panic.  SIRIUS XM’s CEO Mel Karmazin has been fighting the loss of control and John Malone wanted control.  This was also going to be an interesting case for precedent as Liberty was trying to take control without a majority of ownership.

The news should be good news for SIRIUS XM holders at least in theory.  This will prevent the instant conversion of convertible notes into common shares which could have been distributed as a dividend or a spin-off by Liberty to its existing shareholders.  Ultimately, that will keep millions and millions of shares from magically appearing on the market that might have been sold by many Liberty holders.

Keep in mind that this is a decision from the FCC.  There may be other efforts taken by Liberty and John Malone to still take ‘de facto control’ of the company.

Today’s news had no real impact on the stock so we would call it perhaps not such a big event.  SIRIUS XM shares closed down 2.2% at $2.16 for an unofficial closing bell price.  There were some 87.8 million shares traded today against an average of almost 52 million shares.

JON C. OGG

Gabelli’s call noted, “We view the quarter’s results as especially strong given Sirius raised list prices in Q1 by $1.54 (or 12%) to $12.95. Subscriber ARPU +2.0% sequentially (below the 12% price increase) as the price increases only impacted 35% of subscribers, and Sirius likely used pricing promotions to mitigate churn.”

More data showed that SIRIUS XM’s net debt to trailing adjusted EBITDA now stands at 2.9-times, which is actually under the company’s own 3.0-times stated target. SIRIUS XM added 405,000 subscribers in the latest quarter and it is now at its highest count with some 22.3 million subscribers.  The company also lifted its year-end target for subscribers to rise by about 1.5 million in 2012 versus a prior projection of 1.3 million new subscribers.

The Gabelli report also hints at dividends or share repurchases coming down the pipe later this year due in part to the lack of attractive acquisition targets in this satellite radio (and satellite media delivery).  As far as which method the company will return money to its shareholders, “We believe shareholder returns will take the form of buybacks.”

What Gabelli is holding some merit on for its caution is that with EBITDA trading at 16.3-times its 2012 estimates it noted, “we do not believe there is a sufficient margin of safety to add to a position at current prices.”

Perhaps the larger issue is what ultimately happens with John Malone and the Liberty Media Corporation (NASDAQ: LMCA) and the effort for ‘de facto control’ as an unresolved issue.

Pandora Media, Inc. (NYSE: P) may also come under fire as CEO Mel Karmazin has said that SIRIUS plans to introduce a personalized radio service in 2012.

SIRIUS XM shares are up $0.01 today at $2.24 against a 52-week range of $1.27 to $2.44.

JON C. OGG

Read The Least Powerful CEOs in America

Read The Most Powerful CEOs in America

Most of the companies with a controlling shareholder are ones in which the founder or founding family had all of the ownership before the company became public. In some cases these founders kept all voting shares for themselves at the time of the initial public offering. In other cases, they kept enough to still have much larger stakes than any other holders. The best example of the evolution from owning all of a company to owning voting control is Walmart (NYSE: WMT). Sam Walton founded the company. He kept the controlling block of shares when it went public. His family retained control after his death and still does.

The fact that a CEO can be dismissed for reasons other than performance does not appear to affect how well these chief executives do. Current Walmart CEO Michael Duke may be the worst chief executive in the retailer’s history, but so far he retains the support of the founder’s family.  The Mexico bribery scandal that Walmart faces will cost shareholders money, probably in the form of large legal fees and perhaps government fines. Walmart’s stock has fallen recently due to investor concerns. Duke has been a poor steward. At the other end of the spectrum is Fabrizio Freda, who runs Estee Lauder (NYSE: EL). The company set a record for both profits and revenue last year. Shares are up 100% in just two years. Still, nothing would keep the Lauder family from dismissing Freda — should they choose to — despite those successes.

24/7 Wall St. reviewed the corporate structure, governance and voting rights of the 500 largest companies by market cap. Based on a review of company proxies, we identified those companies in which someone other than the CEO had voting control of the company. We then limited the universe to those companies with market cap in excess of $5 billion.

These are 24/7 Wall St.’s least powerful CEOs in America.

The unofficial closing bells put the DJIA down nearly 15 points to 13,213.63 (-0.11%), the NASDAQ fell nearly 23 points (-0.74%) to 3,046.36, and the S&P 500 fell -0.39% or more than 5 points to 1,397.91.

There were several analyst upgrades and downgrades today, including Demand Media Inc. (NYSE: DMD) cut to ‘equal weight’ at Evercore; TransCanada Corp. (NYSE: TRP) cut to ‘hold’ at Desjardins; American Railcar Industries Inc. (NASDAQ: ARII) raised to ‘neutral’ at UBS; Chesapeake Energy Corp. (NYSE: CHK) raised to ‘outperform’ at BMO Capital; Kraft Foods Inc. (NYSE: KFT) raised to ‘overweight’ at JPMorgan; Dollar General Corp. (NYSE: DG) raised to ‘strong buy’ at Raymond James; and Kaiser Aluminum Corp. (NASDAQ: KALU) raised to ‘buy’ at Dahlman Rose.

Earnings reports since markets closed last Friday have led to some price changes as of the last half hour of trading today: LDK Solar Co. Ltd. (NYSE: LDK) is up 10.8% at $3.28 (our coverage here); Humana Inc. (NYSE: HUM) is down -8.4% at $80.49; Senior Housing Properties Trust (NYSE: SNH) is up 0.32% at $22.09; and Sohu.com Inc. (NASDAQ: SOHU) is down -7.4% at $51.62.

Tomorrow we get earnings from Arch Coal Inc. (NYSE: ACI), Archer Daniels Midland Co. (NYSE: ADM), Bankrate Inc. (NASDAQ: RATE), Broadcom Corp. (NASDAQ: BRCM), Chesapeake Energy Corp., Domino’s Pizza Inc. (NYSE: DPZ); Office Depot Inc. (NYSE: ODP); Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE); Sirius XM Radio Inc. (NASDAQ: SIRI); and Valero Energy Corp. (NYSE: VLO).

Other standouts from today include the following stocks:

Barnes & Noble Inc. (NYSE: BKS) is up about 54% at $21.07 after posting a new 52-week high of $26.00 earlier today. The company has created a joint venture with Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT). More coverage here.

Sunoco Inc. (NYSE: SUN) is up 19.5% at $48.89 after posting a new 52-week high of $49.50 earlier today. The company is merging with Energy Transfer Partners L.P. in a deal worth about $5.3 billion. More coverage here.

VeriFone Systems Inc. (NYSE: PAY) is down -12.7% at $47.52. The company’s stock was downgraded at Deutsche Bank, along with comments that the company was inflating its organic growth estimates.

Stay tuned for Tuesday. Richmond Fed President Jeffrey Lacker, Minneapolis Fed President Naryana Kocherlakota, San Francisco Fed President John Williams, and Philadelphia Fed President Charles Plosser are all giving speeches. Motor vehicle sales are expected to be reported throughout the day. We have noted the following events on the schedule (all times Eastern):

• 10:00 a.m. – Institute for Supply Management manufacturing index
• 10:00 a.m. – Construction spending
• 11:30 a.m. – 4- and 52-week bill auctions

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Paul Ausick

NYSE Euronext, Inc. (NYSE: NYX) is on Monday and the following earnings reports are due on Tuesday: Arch Coal Inc. (NYSE: ACI); Archer Daniels Midland Co. (NYSE: ADM); Broadcom Corporation (NASDAQ: BRCM); Chesapeake Energy Corporation (NYSE: CHK); Sirius XM Radio Inc. (NASDAQ: SIRI); Valero Energy Corporation (NYSE: VLO).

Wednesday’s top earnings reports on deck are as follows:  American Water Works Co. (NYSE: AWK); Annaly Capital Management Inc. (NYSE: NLY); Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ: CMCSA); First Solar Inc. (NASDAQ: FSLR); Garmin Ltd. (NASDAQ: GRMN); Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. (NYSE: HIG); MasterCard Inc. (NYSE: MA); Symantec Corporation (NASDAQ: SYMC); Visa Inc. (NYSE: V); and Whole Foods Market Inc. (NASDAQ: WFM).

We will provide previews for the larger report due on Thursday as the reports get closer.  As a reminder, some of the dates and estimates may change and some of them may have already changed.  Consensus estimates are from Thomson Reuters and we have provided color on each if applicable.

NYSE Euronext (NYSE: NYX) reports on Monday.  The consensus estimates are $0.48 EPS and $611.1 million in revenues.  Shares are around $27.00, and the consensus analyst price target is $32.30.  Now that the German merger (the German takeover of America’s top exchange) is off the table, investors are focusing on the values here.

TUESDAY, May 1

Arch Coal Inc. (NYSE: ACI) is due Tuesday morning and its shares have been battered along with the entire coal sector.  Estimates are $0.16 EPS and $1.12 billion in revenues.  Shares are around $9.50, and the consensus analyst price target is $32.30.

Archer Daniels Midland Co. (NYSE: ADM) is due Tuesday morning and estimates are $0.59 EPS and $21.4 billion in revenues.  Shares are around $31.00, and the consensus analyst price target is almost $34.00.

Broadcom Corporation (NASDAQ: BRCM) reports after the close on Tuesday and it has been riding the Apple wave.  The consensus estimates are $0.55 EPS and $1.8 billion in revenues.  Shares are around $36.30 and the consensus analyst price target is $42.40.