Intel & American Express Downgrades Hurting the DJIA (INTC, AXP, MER)
Intel Corp. (NASDAQ:INTC) shares are trading down about 1.7% in very earlybird trading this Friday. The bulge bracket brokerage firm Merrill Lynch has downgraded the processor giant shares from a "Buy" rating down to the beloved "Neutral." First and foremost,…
This post may contain links from our sponsors and affiliates, and Flywheel Publishing may receive compensation for actions taken through them.
Intel Corp. (NASDAQ:INTC) shares are trading down about 1.7% in very earlybird trading this Friday. The bulge bracket brokerage firm Merrill Lynch has downgraded the processor giant shares from a "Buy" rating down to the beloved "Neutral." First and foremost, this downgrade looks like a transition in coverage inside the brokerage firm. It says it expects Intel to benefit from a healthy PC demand, but notes that at 18-times CY2008 EPS that it is at the high-end of its recent valuation range.
American Express (NYSE:AXP) was also downgraded at Merrill Lynch from a "Buy" rating to a "Neutral." 2008 EPS were cut to $3.85 from $3.96 and even 2009 cut to $4.20 from $4.33.
Ironically, this downgrade that includes American Express is having a share indication impact on Merrill Lynch’s own share price. There have not been trades yet that crossed the tape pre-market, but indications have the stock around $74.00 to $74.60, versus the $75.14 close yesterday.
Sometimes butchers do cut their fingers off if they take too wide of a cut.
Jon C. Ogg
September 14, 2007
Jon Ogg can be reached at [email protected]; he produces the 24/7 Wall St. Special Situation Investing Newsletter and he does not own securities in the companies he covers.
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.
McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.
His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.
A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.
TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.
McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.
