MOST NOTEWORTHY: Netflix Inc (NFLX) was the most notable downgrade on the first trading session of the week.
- Roth Capital downgraded Netflix Inc (NASDAQ: NFLX) to Sell from Hold, on the belief that the competitive threat of Blockbuster (NYSE: BBI) will not likely diminish in the near-term.
OTHER DOWNGRADES:
- Deutsche Telekom ADS (NYSE: DT) was downgraded to Sell from Hold at Citigroup following the company's profit warning.
- LECG Corp (NASDAQ: XPRT) was downgraded by William Blair to Underperform from Outperform following the company's disappointing guidance.
- Symantec Corp (NASDAQ: SYMC) was downgraded to Source of Funds from Accumulate at ThinkEquity.
- Stephens downgraded Covenant Transport Inc (NASDAQ: CVTI) to Equal Weight from Overweight based on the timing of a turnaround.
- Bear Stearns downgraded shares of MGM Mirage (NYSE: MGM) to Peer Perform from Outperform citing valuation.
Analyst summaries provided by TheFlyOnTheWall.com (subscription required). 
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
1-29-2007 @ 11:20AM
Rick Hanley said...
Reed Hastings says that he will have 20 million DVD-by-mail rental subscribers by 2010 to 2012. They currently have 6,300,000 subscribers. Since Netflix does rentals, a round trip is involved in each transaction. So we are going to a point where there will be multiple deliveries each week to 20,000,000 subscribers, each involving round trips. If you are good in math, you know that is a lot of carbon emissions.
We could spare the planet a lot of pollution if there is a change to using in-store download and burn (ISDAB) of movies to DVD - the most popular new releases would probably continue to be on shelves. The tens of thousands of older titles are the bread and butter of DVD-by mail. They are cheaper and there is less demand for any one title. These very attributes are the reason it is prohibitive for the brick and mortar retailers to display all the older titles physically on shelves.
Sonic Solutions introduced Qflix, a line of technology that enables burning of DVDs using the standard CSS encryption schemes. It is the first vendor to offer consumer DVD-burning technologies after the DVD Copy Control Association (DVD CCA) made changes to its licensing rules that sanction such technology…
Qflix should have ample opportunities for installation in retail kiosks, such as those from Qflix partners Lucidiom and Polar Frog Digital, at stores like Walgreens (the largest drugstore chain in the US, also a Qflix participant).
Right now, many millions of DVD’s, each week, are trucked all around the country and the numbers are projected to grow dramatically. We could materially improve the efficiency in the physical distribution of movies (for as long as physical must play a role) with the wide use of ISDAB. Hopefully, the studios and the big retailers can get this to happen very soon. Consumers frequent the big chains like Walgreens and Wal-Mart anyway.
The DVD-by-mail thing is done in many countries albeit they are all tiny in scale compared to the U.S. market.
Ultimately, the ideal will be realized which is to distribute electronically directly to ‘all’ consumers to watch on their TV. I used Movielink to rent Inside Man on line and it was great. It took 40 minutes to download. Also, VOD is making big strides - Comcast now has 8,000 titles in VOD and is testing making movies available day-and-date with the release of those movies on DVD.