Continue reading California Pizza: For High-Risk Investors Only

California Pizza: For High-Risk Investors Only originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 15 Mar 2010 13:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Kraft Sells Pizza So It Can Buy Chocolate

Kraft Sells Pizza So It Can Buy Chocolate originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 05 Jan 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading A California Pizza Play Is Possible, But It's Not for the Squeamish

A California Pizza Play Is Possible, But It's Not for the Squeamish originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 04 Jan 2010 15:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading California Pizza: Testing investors' patience

California Pizza: Testing investors' patience originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 15 Sep 2009 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading California Pizza: A restaurant play that's definitely not for rookies

California Pizza: A restaurant play that's definitely not for rookies originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 15 May 2009 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

From TheStreet.com Network

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Continue reading Cramer on BloggingStocks: Restaurants right for the taking

Cramer on BloggingStocks: Restaurants right for the taking originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 15 May 2009 10:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Investors are expecting Wall Street to continue its recent winning ways.

Stocks are poised to open higher as investors await March retail sales data and the weekly unemployment report. Markets in Europe and Asia were higher.

Retail sales, though weak, may not be as bad as investors had feared. According to the Wall Street Journal, "Wal-Mart Stores and a select group of its discounting peers have helped retail sales exceed modest expectations every month since December, and that streak likely will continue."

Continue reading Before the Bell: Wall Street is on a roll -- for now

Before the Bell: Wall Street is on a roll -- for now originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 09 Apr 2009 07:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The recent store changes have not worked, and neither will the financial engineering. This company is on its way down, and a visit to a local store showed me why.

Sears used to be the General Motors (NYSE: GM) of retailers -- an apt analogy when both were all-American giants, and just as apt today as both struggle. Sears had completely lost its way when vulture investor, Eddie Lampert, bought the company in late 2004 and combined it with Kmart. Wall Street analysts went nuts, pushing the stock price to $192 a share.

Today, Wall Street has lowered that price to near $40.

Continue reading Sears: The GM of retailers

Sears: The GM of retailers originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 08 Dec 2008 15:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Analyst upgrades:

• Merrill upgraded Schering-Plough (NYSE: SGP) to Buy from Neutral citing the company's better near-term pipeline outlook with two potential blockbusters to be approved over the next year. Schering-Plough's target was raised to $23 from $20.
• Morgan Stanley lifted RadioShack (NYSE: RSH) and Texas Roadhouse (NASDAQ: TXRH) to Equal Weight from Underweight.

• Jefferies downgraded shares of Hologic (NASDAQ: HOLX) to Hold from Buy as they see limited near-term catalysts after the company reported a Q3 miss and lowered top-line guidance for FY08. The firm lowered their target to $24 from $28.
  
• Baird downgraded California Pizza (NASDAQ: CPKI) to Neutral from Outperform as they see limited near-term upside given the uncertain 2H08/2009 outlook. The company's target was lowered to $15 from $17.
  
• JP Morgan downgraded Jones Lang LaSalle (NYSE: JLL) and CB Richard Ellis (NYSE: CBG) to Neutral from Overweight due to the continued challenging economic environment.

• BC Capital initiated Dollar Financial(NYSE: DLLR) with an Outperform rating and $24 target. The firm likes Dollar's geographically diversified business and valuation.

Analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 31 Jul 2008 11:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Kaufmann has started The Knot (NASDAQ: KNOT) as a "buy," according to the AP.

Soleil upgraded Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) to "hold" from "sell," according to Briefing.com. The news service also reports that Stanford initiated Time Warner (NYSE: TWX) with a "buy" rating.

Campbell Soup (NYSE: CPB) raised to Overweight from Equalweight at Lehman, according to 24/7 Wall St.

Early analyst calls: YHOO, TWX originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 13 Jun 2008 07:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

MOST NOTEWORTHY:

• Banc of America downgraded shares of Motorola (NYSE: MOT) to Neutral from Buy, despite believing the split into two businesses could ultimately unlock value, as they see few catalysts over the next year to lift shares. Banc of America also sees risk to Q1 earnings and lowered their target to $11 from $15.
  
• Friedman Billings lowered California Pizza Kitchen (NASDAQ: CPKI) to Market Perform from Outperform citing sluggish trends in its core markets.
  
• Seagate (NYSE: STX) was cut to Neutral from Outperform at Baird, citing weakening industry conditions throughout the month of March.

• Goldman lowered the Communications Tech sector to Neutral from Attractive, and also downgraded Juniper Networks (NASDAQ: JNPR) and Starent Networks (NASDAQ: STAR) to Neutral from Buy, and Aruba Networks (NASDAQ: ARUN) to Sell from Neutral.

Analyst downgrades: MOT, CPKI and STX originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 27 Mar 2008 11:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The casual dining sector has been hit hard these past few several quarters, not as hard as mortgage lenders and home builders, but hard nonetheless. Consumers are squeezed between rising energy and fuel costs and a drumbeat of negative financial news. Dining out may not be high on many consumers' to-do list.

California Pizza Kitchen Incorporated (NASDAQ: CPKI) is not immune to the impact of these factors. Despite the fact that recently (Aug 9) released 2Q 2007 earnings were overall good, the stock continues to drop from $25 and change in May to $19.28 on 27 August. Analysts had predicted EPS of $0.22 and the stock posted earnings of $0.21, hardly a reason for the stock to fall into disfavor. The numbers tell a much more positive story. Total revenue increased 16% to $158.6 million. Comparable restaurant sales increased 5.4% by total volume, while average weekly sales at the 200+ current restaurants increased almost 5% to $68,535. Some of this increase was due to menu price increases to keep pace with raw material price increases, but some was due to an increase in the number of customers.

There is no denying that margins are tight in the casual dining sector. But California Pizza Kitchen does expect to post modest EPS of $0.03-0.04 in 3Q 2007. Given that small amount, it is difficult to believe FY guidance of $0.58-$0.62 diluted EPS. Management must be planning on a dynamite 4Q 2007.

The company remains optimistic. It opened four new locations with affiliates in 2Q, including a location in Hong Kong, and plans to add six more locations in 3Q. In June, the company granted a third-for-two stock split and is in the midst of a $50 million stock buyback program. The company plans to expand its line of California Pizza Kitchen frozen pizzas to capture a larger slice of the at-home pizza consumer.

California Pizza Kitchen (CPKI) trying to raise the dough originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 28 Aug 2007 14:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The whole series made me think what if someone had written a series like this back in 1982. Many of the names I wrote about I am sure were met with "what's this company?" or " I have never heard of these guys." Back in 1982 I am sure we would have reacted the same way, as many of the future great companies were new or unheard of ... and some did not even exist at that point. As I wrote in the introduction of this series, some of the top 25 stocks may not even be public yet, or even founded for that matter. Google ( NASDAQ: GOOG) was founded in 1998, just 9 years ago and is now a $160 billion market capitalization company!! It has been public for only 3 years.

I am not sure how many of the names I wrote about will be in the top 25 for the NEXT 25 years: only time and performance will tell. But of this I am confident: many of these companies will continue to grow and be more and more relevant in our daily lives. Many will touch us in ways we will never see or truly understand. Not many of us will deal with a large bank and wonder if Opsware (NASDAQ: OPSW) is helping them to automate its massive server farm? Or the next time we slam on our brakes to hopefully avoid an accident, will we really wonder if Wind River Systems (NASDAQ: WIND) designed the real-time operating system micro-chip that helped this automaker design the anti-lock brakes? I doubt it.

Continue reading The top 25 stocks for the NEXT 25 years: 25 for your consideration

The top 25 stocks for the NEXT 25 years: 25 for your consideration originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 15 Jun 2007 17:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

California Pizza Kitchen (NASDAQ: CPKI) on May 10 served up hot 1Q earnings with total revenue up 15.2% to just under $150 million. Comparable sales at restaurants open at least a year were up 4.7%, not great but not bad. Net income was $3.6 million or diluted EPS $0.18, including $.02 per share for accelerated restricted stock vesting. Average weekly sales were up 4% to $65,904. The average check was $13.23. All these increases, though modest, are tending in the right direction.

California Pizza Kitchen currently has 212 full-service restaurants, recently opening 2 in Austin, Texas, and 2 in San Francisco, as well as a franchise location in Japan. The company plans to open 4 more new locations in the second quarter. 181 locations are company owned and, the remainder are franchised. With the new openings, the company also expects to bring in a comparable sales increase of 5-6%, CEOs Rick Rosenfield and Larry Flax forecast 2Q diluted EPS of $.34-.36. California Pizza Kitchen is also looking to expand its brand alliance with Kraft Foods.

The company is so confident in its continuing profitability that is recently granted a 3-for-2 stock split, the company's first stock split since the company's founding in 1985. After the split, the company will have just over 29 million shares outstanding, an increase of 10 million from the current 19.4 million shares. It is shaping up to be a good summer for California Pizza Kitchen as the stock has already gained 9% since January 2007. The stock closed at $36.26 on May 29th, down $0.15.

California Pizza Kitchen cooks up hot 1Q earnings originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 30 May 2007 14:38:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

I have written up eight companies that have a chance to be among the top 25 stocks for the NEXT 25 years and I thought it might be time for some discussion. You, the readers have sent in quite a bit of responses to the first six names. Most of your responses have been very positive and I certainly appreciate it. But many of you have been raising questions that I believe need a general response.

Let's put a few ideas and myths to rest once and for all.

The top 25 for the NEXT 25 years are bound to be smaller capitalization companies. By definition, they have to be. I recommend a number of companies on my website that are of a larger capitalization, but to make the list, the law of large numbers is against the larger cap names. If a $20 billion market cap names five folds over the next 10 years, that's a great return and no one should be unhappy. But if a $500 million market cap name goes to $20 billion in value, that's a 40 times return. So, the names will be of a smaller cap nature.

With high-growth companies early in their development, don't get hung up on lack of dividends. High growth companies do not pay dividends, nor should they. You want every penny of after-tax earnings to be plowed back into the business. Mature companies tend to pay cash dividends because their growth rates have slowed, the business lines are well-funded, and the excess cash is returned to shareholders. The downfall is that the stocks will not grow as fast in value as a high-growth company that is executing well. The big joke among portfolio managers when Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) declared its one time $3 dividend and initiated a quarterly dividend was that the party was over! When is the funeral? Microsoft was signaling that the high-growth, plow the earnings back into the business era was over. The stock traded sideways for nearly three years as Microsoft tried to get its footing back.

Continue reading The Top 25 Stocks for the NEXT 25 Years -- Discussion

The Top 25 Stocks for the NEXT 25 Years -- Discussion originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sat, 19 May 2007 08:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.