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Top Analyst Upgrades & Downgrades (ALU, AIG, DK, GRPN, HD, ING, K, MDVN, PIR, DGX, TOL, VE, PAY, WES, YRCW)

Administrator — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 13:22:59 +0000

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

Alcatel-Lucent SA (NYSE: ALU) Cut to Sell at Citigroup; Cut estimates and target at Argus.
American International Group Inc. (NYSE: AIG) named as Bear of the Day at Zacks.
Delek US Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: DK) named value stock of the day at Zacks.
Groupon, Inc. (NASDAQ: GRPN) Started as Buy at Benchmark.
The Home Depot Inc. (NYSE: HD) Raised to Outperform at RBC.
ING Groep NV (NYSE: ING) Cut to Hold at Soc-Gen.
Kellogg Co. (NYSE: K) Cut to Market Perform at William Blair.
Medivation, Inc. (NASDAQ: MDVN) Raised to Outperform as Bull of the Day at Zacks.
Pier 1 Imports, Inc. (NYSE: PIR) Started as Outperform at Wells Fargo.
Quest Diagnostics Inc. (NYSE: DGX) Raised to Outperform at RBC.
Toll Brothers Inc. (NYSE: TOL) Raised to Buy at Citigroup.
Veolia Environnement S.A. (NYSE: VE) Cut to Underweight at JPMorgan.
VeriFone Systems, Inc (NYSE: PAY) Started as Buy at Citigroup.
Western Gas Partners. L.P. (NYSE: WES) Raised to Outperform at Credit Suisse.
YRC Worldwide. Inc. (NASDAQ: YRCW) Maintained Underperform and target cut to $0.05 at Credit Suisse; maintained neutral with losing share at Zacks.

See the top analyst upgrades and downgrades of the prior week here.

JON C. OGG

Filed under: Analyst Calls Tagged: AIG, ALU, DGX, DK, GRPN, HD, ING, K, MDVN, PAY, PIR, TOL, VE, WES, YRCW

The Unusual Suspects for the Week Ahead (AAPL, BEC, FFIV, GM, GAP, GMCR, HHWW, MAT, PAA, WES, ORCL, PG, RIMM, RAD, SIRI, THC, YOKU)

Administrator — Sun, 12 Dec 2010 17:25:43 +0000

We have a different cast of characters in this weekend’s UNUSUAL SUSPECTS for the week ahead. Many bits of news and rumors are carrying over from last week into the coming week and we have several key earnings on deck along with corporate events. The cast of characters in the UNUSUAL SUSPECTS includes Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL), Beckman Coulter, Inc. (NYSE: BEC), F5 Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ: FFIV), General Motors Corporation (NYSE: GM), The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company, Inc. (NYSE: GAP), Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc. (NASDAQ: GMCR), Horiyoshi Worldwide Inc. (OTCBB-HHWW), Mattel Inc. (NASDAQ: MAT), Plains All American Pipeline LP (NYSE: PAA), Western Gas Partners LP (NYSE: WES), Oracle Corporation (NASDAQ: ORCL), Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG), Research In Motion Limited (NASDAQ: RIMM), Rite Aid Corp. (NYSE: RAD), SIRIUS XM Radio Inc. (NASDAQ: SIRI), Tenet Healthcare Corp. (NYSE: THC), and Youku.com Inc. (NASDAQ: YOKU).

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) is likely doing all it can to contain the mountain of rumors about the iPad2 with dual cameras and even a CDMA aversion at launch so that it doesn’t have order softness of the first iPad going into Christmas. So far, sales have not been hindered. We still want to refer back to the first reaction: Apple is turning its customers into lemmings.

Beckman Coulter Inc. (NYSE: BEC) was much higher after reports that it was up for sale. We ran the analysis to see what it can fetch in a sale, and some common sense might dictate that the premium Friday was already enough.

F5 Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ: FFIV) landed the #1 spot in the Investors Business Daily 100, or IBD 100, this weekend. It is followed by 2-RVBD, 3-LULU, 4-NFLX, 5-SLW. F5 was announced to join the S&P 500 during last week and NASDAQ named it as one of the new NASDAQ 100 members to join the index.

General Motors Corporation (NYSE: GM) was noted over the weekend by Barron’s as “being eligible to join the Russell 3000 Index as soon as Friday, December 17.

The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company, Inc. (NYSE: GAP) looks done for the holders of stock. Shares were halted after losing more than half their value and after hitting new multi-year lows under $1.00. The grocery chain filed for bankruptcy.

Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc. (NASDAQ: GMCR) will have to play some damage control. The guidance was disappointing, but the lack of clarity will erode its credibility with many investors and you already know that this one is heavily shorted. Shares fell 9.65% to $33.81 on more than 20 million shares. That is still not as bad as the end of September when the SEC issues first arose and the stock fell to $31.06 from $37.01.

Filed under: Calendar, Earnings, The Week Tagged: AAPL, BEC, FFIV, GAP, GM, GMCR, HHWW, MAT, ORCL, PAA, PG, RAD, RIMM, SIRI, THC, WES, YOKU

Anadarko Sells Mid-Stream Assets to Itself (APC, WES)

247wallst — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 12:18:18 +0000

Western Gas Partners, LP (NYSE:WES) has completed the purchase of gas processing plants and gathering systems from Anadarko Petroleum Corporation (NYSE:APC). Western Gas was formed by Anadarko earlier this year to off-load Anadarko’s mid-stream assets to a separate master limited partnership. Anadarko owns about 63% of Western’s common and subordinated units and the 2% general partnership interest in Western.

The purchase price was approximately $210 million, which Western financed with a new $175 million note to Anadarko, and more than 2.5 million new common units at an implied price of $13.69/unit. Western’s share price is up slightly this morning, to $12.53/unit. Anadarko shares are up a penny, to $35.62.

Paul Ausick
December 26, 2008

Posted in Oil & Gas Tagged: APC, WES

Growing List of Damaged Post-IPO’s (SB, NM, RSOL, RAX, IPI, WES, PSE)

247wallst — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 16:17:44 +0000

We would be reporting the economic numbers from the government’s Department of Redundancy Department if we said it is an ugly bear market and if we told you that the IPO market was all but dead. But what is amazing here is the absolute poor performance we have seen out of the 2008 post-IPO companies. Many of these companies are still doing well, and some are not. But in our screen of the big IPO’s there is an astonishing number of post-IPO’s that are trading much worse than just busted IPO’s by being under the IPO price.

Our list of 2008 IPO’s here was 30% and a somewhat active stock volume. Below is the list of post-IPO’s we track with shares down more than 30% from the IPO price:

Stock (Ticker)                                  Loss Close IPO$
Safe Bulkers Inc. (SB)                   -62% $7.27 $19.00
Navios Maritime Acquis.(NM)       -61% $3.89 $10.00
Real Goods Solar (RSOL)          -57% $4.25 $10.00
RackSpace Hosting Inc. (RAX)    -48% $6.95 $12.50
Intrepid Potash (IPI)                      -36% $20.58 $32.00
Western Gas Partners (WES)       -32% $11.27 $16.50
Pioneer Southwest Energy (PSE) -31% $13.11 $19.00

Jon C. Ogg
October 7, 2008

Posted in General Tagged: IPI, NM, PSE, RAX, RSOL, SB, WES

Top 10 Pre-Market Analyst Calls (APOL, BZH, CB, CTSH, FITB, IRF, PBG, SNDK, SY, SYMC, WES)

247wallst — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 06:43:51 +0000

These are ten of the analyst calls we are focusing on this Friday morning:

Apollo Group (NASDAQ: APOL) Raised to Outperform at Credit Suisse.
Beazer Homes (NYSE: BZH) Raised To Neutral at UBS.
Chubb (NYSE: CB) Raised to Equal-Weight at Morgan Stanley.
Cognizant Technology (NASDAQ: CTSH) Cut To Neutral at Goldman Sachs.
Fifth Third Bancorp (NASDAQ: FITB) Raised to Outperform at KBW.
International Rectifier (NYSE: IRF) Cut to Sell at Citigroup.
Pepsi Bottling (NYSE: PBG) Raised to Neutral at JPMorgan.
SanDisk (NASDAQ: SNDK) Cut to Hold from Buy at Citigroup.
Sybase (NYSE: SY) Cut to Neutral at Banc Of America.
Symantec (NASDAQ: SYMC) Cut to Market Perform at FBR.
Western Gas Partners (NYSE: WES) Started as Hold at Citigroup.

Jon C. Ogg
June 20, 2008

Trouble Brewing In Oil & Gas MLP Land? (PAA, OGE, DVN, XCO, VQ, WES, APC, BSR)

247wallst — Thu, 15 May 2008 09:34:24 +0000

We have tracked these Master Limited Partnerships (MLP’s) and spin-offs or carve-out IPO’s from larger oil and gas companies for quite some time. What is amazing is that despite the rapid rise in oil and energy-related commodities has not translated to the "peak-IPO rush" like we saw with dot.com IPO flame-outs from 1999 and 2000. Many have been withdrawn and many have gone in limbo.

Earlier this week, Plains All American Pipeline LP (NYSE: PAA) completed a public offering of 6.9 million common units at $46.31/unit, generating net proceeds of $315 million. In February, Plains withdrew a proposed IPO for a master limited partnership (MLP) in its general partner, which may have generated much more cash.

OGE Corporation (NYSE: OGE) withdrew a proposed MLP IPO in January, citing "market volatility."

Devon Energy (NYSE: DVN) had planned an MLP IPO for the third quarter of 2007, but the offering has neither gone forward nor been withdrawn. This one is still in the "pending" category.

EXCO Resources Inc. (NYSE: XCO) filed in September 2007 for a public offering of 75 million common units in an MLP. Exco withdrew the offer in January, stating that "current market conditions do not support the completion of the offering in a manner that would result in the value enhancement to EXCO and its shareholders that was anticipated upon the initial filing of the registration statement."

Venoco Inc. (NYSE: VQ) announced an E&P MLP in February. This one is still outstanding as it is only 3-months old. Venoco enjoyed a $3.00/share price jump on Monday’s earnings report.

Last week we saw a pricing from Western Gas Partners L.P. (NYSE: WES),a spin-out from Anadarko Petroleum Corp. (NYSE: APC) saw a lacklusterIPO with a pricing below the indicated levels.

You can join our open email distribution list to hear about other secondary offerings, IPO’s, secondary offerings, special financings, mergers, spin-offs, and other special situations.

If you want to see an even more broad example of this trend in MLP’s, you can look at the ETF: BearLinx Alerian MLP Select Index ETN (NYSE: BSR)… This is technically an ETN, but who’s counting. Its chart has been highly unimpressive.

It’s not all bad out there. Some will still come public and some will still continue to do well. We’ll be showing some other pending or withdrawn IPO’s in deals thatare similar, but aren’t going to be oil and gas or pipeline MLP IPO’s.Stay tuned.

Paul Ausick
May 15, 2008

Anadarko Scores With Western Gas IPO (APC, WES, EP, EPB)

247wallst — Fri, 09 May 2008 08:45:53 +0000

In June 2006, Anadarko Petroleum (NYSE:APC) bought both Western Gas Resources and Kerr-McGee for a total of more than $23 billion. Last night, Anadarko announced that it had priced an IPO of 18.75 million shares for Western Gas Partners, LP (NYSE: WES) at $16.50 per common unit. APC also granted underwriters an overallotment of 2.82 million shares. Book-runners include UBS, Citi, Credit Suisse, and Morgan Stanley, with a host of other institutions getting into the act as well. Here were details from our coverage of the filing.

The new company’s assets are a natural gas treatment plant in Texas, and gas gathering and pipeline systems in the Rocky Mountains and several Midwestern states. In 2007, these assets produced $116 million in revenue and $24 million in earnings.

If the overallotment is exercised, the limited partners will own about 40% of Western Gas Partners, LP, and Anadarko will own the rest, including the general partner interest. According to the filing, Anadarko receives the 2% general partner interest plus incentive distributions that could rise to 50% of available cash after the distributions reach $0.45/common unit. WES will return virtually all the proceeds (about $350 million) to Anadarko, which will use the money to repay a portion of Anadarko’s recent $2.2 billion borrowing from, surprise, the underwriters.

Anadarko first filed with the SEC for this IPO in April 2007, and it’s taken this long to get to the IPO. The company reported good results for the first quarter of 2008, and, according to Forbes, Moody’s recently raised its outlook to ‘stable’ from ‘negative’ on APC’s ‘Baa3′ senior unsecured long-term debt. Including the $2.2 billion, APC’s total long-term debt and liabilities were about $26.6 billion at the end of the first quarter.

Spinning off midstream assets is nothing new for E&P companies. El Paso (NYSE: EP) hived off El Paso Pipeline Partners L.P. (NYSE: EPB) in November 2007 for about $540 million and EPB’s stock price has risen about 11% since then. Anadarko and Western Gas Partners, LP should be happy with similar performance — not great, but good enough to keep the debt rating companies happy.

Oddly enough, Carl Icahn was a huge owner of Anadarko as of the last filing dates.

You can join our open email distribution list to keep up with other mergers, IPO’s, spin-offs, and other specialty financings.

Paul Ausick
May 9, 2008

Anadarko Spinning Off Western Gas Partners in MLP IPO (APC, WES)

247wallst — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 07:18:25 +0000

Anadarko Petroleum Corp. (NYSE:APC) has filed for an IPO of its Western Gas Partners, LP, for some
$452.8 million. The company has a proposed sale of 18.75 million units with an additional 2.8125 million units in the overallotment for underwriters. Western Gas will trade under the "WES" ticker on the NYSE.

This MLP was just formed in August as a midstream asset owner. UBS Investment Bank was hired as the structuring advisor and will lead the underwriting group as the book-running manager. This operates in East Texas, the Rocky Mountains, the Mid-Continent and West Texas and is engaged in the business of gathering, compressing, treating and transporting natural gas for Anadarko and third-party producers and customers.

For a comparison on market capitalization, Anadarko Petroleum itself has a $26.5 Billion market cap. During the year ended December 31, 2006 and the six months ended June 30, 2007, approximately 92% of its total natural gas gathering and transportation volumes were comprised of natural gas production owned or controlled by Anadarko. For the six months ended June 30, 2007, adjusted for divestitures prior to this offering and including the assets being contributed, Anadarko’s total domestic midstream asset portfolio generated approximately $157 million of cash flow from operations and consisted of 25 gathering systems and one transportation system with throughput of approximately 3.0 Bcf/d, approximately 11,200 miles of pipeline, and 25 processing and/or treating facilities.

Jon C. Ogg
October 15, 2007