MARKET CURRENTS
real-time news and commentary for investors
MARKET CURRENTS
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Today - Wednesday, May 23, 2012
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6:25 PM Courtesy of corporate insiders, the bull market may have dodged a bullet, based on the historical ratio of the number of shares insiders have sold to the number they've bought. The average level for the ratio over the last four decades is between 2-to-1 and 2.5-to-1; the ratio was just 1.63-to-1 last week after reaching 6.56-to-1 in March. 1 Comment
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5:15 PM Are railroads the new way to play the oil sands boom? Rail sports several advantages over pipelines, thus the weekly number of carloads of oil products in North America has been surging since early 2011. But there are disadvantages too: it costs ~2x as much to move oil on rails than through a pipe, and the boom in oil traffic for trains merely replaces part of what’s being lost in coal traffic. 7 Comments
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1:57 PM Alcatel-Lucent (ALU +4.7%), down ~40% since February, outperforms with the help of bullish commentary regarding its 7950 XRS core router line, launched yesterday. Deutsche thinks the products offer "meaningful improvements" over rival offerings, and could take 5%-10% of the U.S. core router market simply by leveraging Alcatel's mobile carrier relationships. Goldman thinks the hardware could cause some headaches for Juniper (JNPR -4.8%). (previous) 1 Comment
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1:12 PM Aflac (AFL) is among the names that pop up when DividendChannel screens its top ranked dividend stocks for those which have also seen insider buying over the past 6 months. Insiders sell for a variety of reasons. They buy because they they want to make money. The stock currently yields 3.4%. 12 Comments
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10:46 AM More on Cree: Wunderlich's Theodore O'Neill suggests the company is the First Solar (FSLR) of the LED world. He notes both Cree and First Solar rely on exotic materials few others in in their respective industries use, and argues each company's competitive edge is withering as the materials typically used by rivals - polysilicon for First Solar's competitors, sapphire for Cree's - get cheaper. Meanwhile, Digitimes reports LED prices have stabilized in Q2 thanks to strong demand. (also) 1 Comment
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10:42 AM In the wake of the PCX disaster, is there any bottom in sight for trashed coal stocks (KOL -1.8%)? Not yet, chartist Robert Sinn writes. "A stock like ANR at $11/share has almost turned into a call option on the Chinese economy and thermal coal prices," Sinn says, but "just like a call option, it will bleed time premium if China continues to deteriorate and thermal prices continue lower." Comment!
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10:39 AM Cree (CREE -5.1%) adds to the losses seen yesterday on news of CFO John Kurtzweil's plans to leave for Extreme Networks (EXTR -2.1%). Not helping is a downbeat assessment from Canaccord, which views the move as a "momentum killer" that while drive Cree shares lower over the near-term. The firm speculates Kurtzweil's departure is linked to a shift in Cree's business model to selling LED lighting fixtures instead of LED chips. Comment!
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9:46 AM More on Dell: Though lowering its PT, Stifel tries to make a bull case for the company. It views a growing mix shift to non-PC enterprise solutions (now 31.4% of revenue) as a positive, as well as its guidance for stable FQ2 gross margins. Overall, it sees "an improved/cleaner 2H2012 story" driving shares higher. Also of note: Dell, which has a market cap of $22.9B now has $8.2B in net cash and investments. (transcript) Comment!
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9:41 AM Patriot Coal (PCX +6.4%) shares enjoy a decent rebound after yesterday's disaster, and the company sends a letter to employees saying "operations are performing well." A bit late after yesterday's 28% drubbing, Deutsche Bank downgrades PCX to Hold from Buy, citing the uncertainty of the company's financing arrangements. Comment!
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9:35 AM Sell-side commentary on Dell (DELL -14.1%) is predictably bleak following its huge FQ1 miss (I, II) and admission it's suffering from tablet cannibalization, soft enterprise demand, Asian competition, and sales issues, among other things. Deutsche is downgrading shares to Neutral, while Brean Murray voices concerns about the impact of Dell's sales problems on its efforts to lower its PC exposure. Sterne Agee, which upgraded Dell last week, wishes it kept its Underperform rating. (transcript) Comment!
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Tuesday, May 22, 2012
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6:38 PM Renowned NYU finance prof. Aswath Damodaran assigns Facebook (FB -8.9%) a value of $29/share, a little below today's $31 closing price, based on a detailed valuation analysis. His assumptions: Facebook's annual revenue growth will average 40% over the next 5 years before slowing; its operating margin will fall from a sky-high 45.68% to 35%; and its cost of capital will be a relatively high 11.42% (to account for higher-than-normal risk). (Blodget's valuation) 2 Comments
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6:10 PM Think housing will improve? Buy truckers, KeyBanc's Todd Fowler suggests. “All the freight required to build a new home has a very positive impact on trucking activity," he says, noting each new residence requires 5-8 truckloads to transport supplies such as lumber, roofing materials and interior furnishings. Fowler likes KNX, WERN and CGI, plus retailers HD and LOW. Comment!
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4:34 PM Falling commodity prices, tightening processing margins and renewed fears of a European banking crisis have dragged down master limited partnerships, but Credit Suisse says fundamentals remain strong. The firm suggests investors overweight MLP portfolios with large-cap, diversified names such as Kinder Morgan (KMP), Enterprise Products (EPD) and Plains All American (PAA). 5 Comments
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2:38 PM China Mobile (CHA +1.8%) trades higher on an upgrade to Outperform from Credit Suisse, which sees strong 3G uptake in "Tier 2" Chinese cities leading to double-digit revenue growth for the country's carriers. CS notes 2/3 of China's net adds since April '11 have involved 3G, leading its penetration rate to grow to 15.6% of phones, and that 3G subs tend to sport higher ARPUs. Outperforms are reiterated for China Mobile (CHL) and China Unicom (CHU - previous). 1 Comment
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2:10 PM The Street is pricing Qualcomm (QCOM +1.2%) as if its business model is broken, says Bernstein's Stacy Rasgon. At a sub-$60 stock price, he thinks investors are pricing in a major decline in Qualcomm's royalty payments, either due to a lower rate or declining 3G/4G phone prices, and/or a drop in its chip margins. Rasgon, who has a $75 PT on Qualcomm, doesn't see either scenario as likely. (earlier) 4 Comments
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11:42 AM Goldman's Bill Shope is encouraged by the huge product refresh announced yesterday by EMC (EMC +0.7%). Shope sees the company's new VMAX systems allowing it to re-take share in the high-end storage market, and believes its OneFS system, a product of the Isilon acquisition, will put EMC on better footing in the network-attached storage (NAS) market relative to NetApp (NTAP). He also likes EMC's continued embrace of flash memory. (earlier) Comment!
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11:12 AM Shares of Hugoton Royalty Trust (HGT -22.9%) plunge as a Sir Perfluis analysis on Seeking Alpha says "purchasing HGT units at current prices is like buying 60 cents for a dollar... Quite literally, unless natural gas prices stage a rally, a current HGT unit-holder can expect to receive total cash flows of less than the current share price." 8 Comments
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10:56 AM Investors can grab Plains All American Pipeline (PAA +1%) and its 5.3% dividend yield even cheaper than director Gary Petersen did when he bought 5K shares on May 17 at $79.47 each, DividendChannel writes. A long-term dividend history chart strongly suggests PAA is likely to continue paying a comparably attractive dividend. Comment!
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10:22 AM The selloff in Chesapeake Energy (CHK +0.2%) creates a buying opportunity, Oppenheimer says while maintaining its Outperform rating and $28 price target. CHK is accelerating its liquids production growth and asset monetization, and the firm thinks its net asset value after pending asset sales is above its current share price. 4 Comments
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10:09 AM EnerNOC (ENOC +12%) shares surge after Needham raises its rating to Buy from Hold, believing the stock has bottomed and should become more attractive to long-term investors. The firm says ENOC isn't another Comverge (now private), "as the company has far more substantial scale, prior history of profitability, and healthier overall capitalization." Comment!
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