Posted Jun 29th 2009 8:00AM by Steven Mallas
Filed under: Time Warner (TWX), Walt Disney (DIS), Viacom (VIA), Hasbro Inc (HAS), Film
Well, Viacom's (NYSE: VIA) Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen took command of the domestic box-office weekend. No surprise after observing what the film did last Wednesday when it opened. According to Boxofficemojo, Fallen, as of early estimates, grossed $112 million during the three-day period starting Friday. The film has taken in over $200 million so far once the days leading up to the weekend are added in. Excellent business. Especially considering that the sequel is doing better than its predecessor at this point, according to a comparison chart (this chart includes a comparison with Iron Man as well, so just focus on the Transformers franchise).
Growth. You've got to love it. I'm sure Viacom does. Disney (NYSE: DIS) isn't doing badly, either. Although not a huge hit, The Proposal did respectable business. It came in second with $18 million. It should eventually reach $100 million.
Continue reading Viacom's 'Transformers' takes over the multiplex
Posted Jun 22nd 2009 11:00AM by Joseph Lazzaro
Filed under: Hasbro Inc (HAS), Stocks to Buy
Readers of this space know that the retail sector is not my preferred investment area, but there are exceptions, and Hasbro (NYSE: HAS) is one.
In general, analysts see flat-to-slightly declining revenue for FY2009 for HAS, due to the "frugal consumer" era in the United States. Still, I'd argue that the forecast could be a tad low.
Continue reading Hasbro really likes Q4
Posted Apr 25th 2009 3:40PM by Trey Thoelcke
Filed under: Earnings reports, Yahoo! (YHOO), eBay (EBAY), Coca-Cola (KO), PepsiCo (PEP), Amazon.com (AMZN), International Business Machines (IBM), 3M Corporation (MMM), Caterpillar (CAT), Schlumberger Limited (SLB), Netflix, Inc. (NFLX), Bank of America (BAC), United Parcel'B' (UPS), Merck and Co (MRK), Hasbro Inc (HAS)
Here are some highlights from this past week's earnings coverage from BloggingStocks:
Continue reading Earnings highlights: Bank of America, Amazon, Coke, eBay, UPS, Yahoo!, IBM, and more
Posted Apr 20th 2009 3:20PM by Steven Mallas
Filed under: Earnings reports, Hasbro Inc (HAS)
Hasbro (NYSE: HAS), a toymaker that competes with Mattel (NYSE: MAT) and JAKKS Pacific (NASDAQ: JAKK), reported results for the first quarter on Monday. They weren't that spectacular. No big earnings beat here. Net sales were down 6%, even excluding the effect of currency translation. Net income dropped 44% to $0.14 per share. According to this source, that number unfortunately merely met Wall Street expectations.
Of course, I suppose things could have been worse. Hasbro could have missed expectations by a mile. In this kind of economy, we probably should be glad that a company whose products can easily be cut from any discretionary family budget at least was able to keep up with prevailing wisdom.
Continue reading Hasbro meets expectations in tough Q1
Posted Apr 11th 2009 4:10PM by Steven Mallas
Filed under: Viacom (VIA), Mattel, Inc (MAT), Hasbro Inc (HAS), Recession
I was looking at The Hollywood Reporter the other day and came across an item about Hasbro (NYSE: HAS) and an innocent little DVD deal it made that involved some animated product, including old episodes of the cartoon version of Transformers. That reminded me that the Transformers sequel, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, is due out at the end of June. That further reminded me that it might be time to take a look at the stock of Mattel's (NYSE: MAT) archrival.
Hasbro had a rough time last Christmas. When I covered the toy maker's earnings in February, I noted that they experienced a significant drop and that they missed analyst expectations. But I also noted something else: the company's shares rallied on the bad earnings release. That gave me pause. Could this be an interesting indication about Hasbro's future? Was the stock a buy?
Continue reading Should you be looking at Hasbro?
Posted Feb 19th 2009 11:35AM by Steven Mallas
Filed under: Earnings reports, Walt Disney (DIS), Viacom (VIA), Mattel, Inc (MAT), Hasbro Inc (HAS)
JAKKS Pacific (NASDAQ: JAKK), a toy maker which competes with Hasbro (NYSE: HAS) and Mattel (NYSE: MAT), did not have a merry Christmas. In that regard, it's no different than the competition. Times are tough, and since toys are not a necessity, it's no wonder that earnings for JAKKS Pacific missed Q4 estimates by a rather significant amount. Net sales dipped by over 5%, and net income dropped 47% to $0.55 per share according to the earnings release. The call was for $1.02 per share. Did I say estimates missed by a rather significant amount? I didn't realize that I was in the mood for understatement.
Continue reading JAKKS Pacific found no Christmas magic in Q4
Posted Feb 19th 2009 11:15AM by Eric Buscemi
Filed under: Analyst reports, Analyst upgrades and downgrades, Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Exxon Mobil (XOM), Whole Foods Market (WFMI), Comcast Cl'A' (CMCSA), Hasbro Inc (HAS), Analyst initiations
Analyst upgrades:
- Jefferies upgraded Whole Foods (NASDAQ: WFMI) to Buy from Hold as it believes the company is taking the right steps to turn its operations around. The firm raised its target price to $13 from $11.
- Pali upgraded Whole Foods to Buy from Sell following the Q1 report based on better than expected cost containment, labor costs, capex cuts, and plans to rationalize the store base.
- Thomas Weisel upgraded Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) to Overweight from Market Weight. The firm believes HPQ's risk/reward has improved given overdue reduced FY09 guidance and attractive valuation.
- Bernstein upgraded Talisman (NYSE: TLM) to Outperform from Market Perform based on relative valuation.
- Navistar (NYSE: NAV) was added to Goldman's Conviction Buy List.
- Sovran Self Storage (NYSE: SSS) was upgraded to Perform from Underperform at Oppenheimer.
- Suncor (NYSE: SU) was upgraded at Barclays to Overweight from Equal Weight.
Continue reading Analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations: WFMI, HPQ, XOM, HAS ...
Posted Feb 15th 2009 3:40PM by Douglas McIntyre
Filed under: Competitive strategy, Mattel, Inc (MAT), Hasbro Inc (HAS)
Companies like Mattel (NYSE: MAT) and Hasbro (NYSE: HAS) have apparently decided that selling toys in a recession means offering products that the consumer can buy even in the face of a poor economy. That means toys that sell for less. And that means lower revenue -- perhaps losses.
According to Reuters, "Mattel is selling Elmo gloves for $30 this year, while its $60 Elmo Live doll was in the spotlight a year earlier. Hasbro is promoting its $28 Lil' Patter Pup, whereas last year's focus was on the $180 toy puppy called Biscuit."
Over the past year, shares in Hasbro and Mattel have behaved very differently: Mattel is off more than 40% while Hasbro is down about 10%.
Continue reading Hey, toy companies: Cheaper toys means lower profits
Posted Feb 14th 2009 10:40AM by Trey Thoelcke
Filed under: Earnings reports, Coca-Cola (KO), PepsiCo (PEP), Diageo plc (DEO), Boeing Co (BA), Abercrombie and Fitch (ANF), Barrick Gold (ABX), Hasbro Inc (HAS), Activision Inc (ATVI), Marriott Intl'A' (MAR), Wells Fargo (WFC), Nissan Motors (NSANY)
Here are some highlights from this past week's earnings coverage from BloggingStocks:
Continue reading Earnings highlights: Coke, Pepsi, Hasbro, Marriott, Abercrombie, Wells Fargo and others
Posted Feb 12th 2009 8:30AM by Steven Mallas
Filed under: Earnings reports, Microsoft (MSFT), Sony Corp ADR (SNE), Hasbro Inc (HAS), Electronic Arts (ERTS), Activision Inc (ATVI)
Activision Blizzard (NASDAQ: ATVI), a video-game publisher that competes with Electronic Arts (NASDAQ: ERTS), THQ (NASDAQ: THQI), and Take-Two Interactive (NASDAQ: TTWO), reported earnings for the fourth quarter on Wednesday after the bell. The company did well during the holiday-selling season, in my opinion. According to this source, adjusted quarterly earnings of 31 cents per share beat estimates by two pennies. Non-GAAP sales of $2.3 billion also beat analyst expectations.
However, the market decided to sell the stock in the after-hours session after the earnings were released because of what was perceived to be a poor outlook for the next fiscal year (as I was writing this piece, the shares were off by about 4%). Analysts were hoping that 2009 would bring 67 cents per share on an adjusted basis, but Activision Blizzard's management team thinks 61 cents per share is more likely.
Continue reading Activision Blizzard beats during holiday quarter, where does stock go from here?
Posted Feb 9th 2009 8:18AM by Melly Alazraki
Filed under: Earnings reports, Analyst upgrades and downgrades, Apple Inc (AAPL), Pfizer (PFE), Amazon.com (AMZN), General Motors (GM), Adobe Systems (ADBE), Corning Inc (GLW), NYSE Euronext (NYX), Lennar Corp'A' (LEN), Hasbro Inc (HAS), Analyst initiations, Barclays plc ADS (BCS), Trina Solar ADS (TSL), Nissan Motors (NSANY)
Nissan Motor Co. (NASDAQ: NSANY) reported a $904 million quarterly loss and said it expects this year to be its first annual loss in nine years. Nissan is
cutting 20,000 jobs, or 8.5% of its workforce. NSANY shares declined over 6.5% in premarket trade.
Barclays PLC (NYSE: BCS) reported Monday that its
net profit for 2008 fell just 1% after several major one-off gains helped compensate for over 8 billion pounds ($11.8 billion) of write-downs. The bank's balance sheet, meanwhile, ballooned 67% to 2.05 trillion pounds. Pretax profit for the year dropped 14% to 6.08 billion pounds, well ahead of analyst estimates. Barclays said it will resume dividend payments in the second half of the year. Shares in Barclays soared over 12% in premarket trade.
Continue reading Stocks in the news: NSANY, BCS, GM, NYX, AMZN, HAS, ADBE, PFE, LDK ...
Posted Feb 7th 2009 3:40PM by Trey Thoelcke
Filed under: Earnings reports, Avon Products (AVP), Costco Wholesale (COST), Monster Worldwide (MNST), Yum Brands (YUM), Mattel, Inc (MAT), United Parcel'B' (UPS), Alcatel-LucentADS (ALU), Hasbro Inc (HAS), Electronic Arts (ERTS), Kraft Foods'A' (KFT), SanDisk Corp (SNDK), Northrop Grumman (NOC)
Here are some highlights from this past week's earnings coverage from BloggingStocks:
Continue reading Earnings highlights: UPS, Kraft, Mattel, Avon, Northrop Grumman and others
Posted Feb 2nd 2009 5:00PM by Steven Mallas
Filed under: Earnings reports, Mattel, Inc (MAT), Hasbro Inc (HAS)
Mattel, Inc. (NYSE: MAT), big rival of Hasbro, Inc. (NYSE: HAS) and JAKKS Pacific (NASDAQ: JAKK), had one apocalyptically bad quarter. According to today's Stocks in the News, the toy maker earned $0.49 per share in the fourth quarter. Expectations were for $0.72 per share. Know that horrible Christmas retail season you've been hearing about? It's real.
Mattel, it seems, wasn't able to leverage any of its brand power to save itself from the recession. Well, I suppose that isn't entirely true, since American Girl sales went up 5% in Q4 according to the corporate press release. But Mattel's famous, historical brands, Hot Wheels and Barbie, did no heavy lifting whatsoever, and you would have expected them to help out at least a little. Worldwide gross sales for Fisher Price decreased 10%. For Barbie, the plunge was 21%. And for the Wheels category (which includes Hot Wheels, Matchbox, and remote-control items), sales dropped 19%.
Continue reading Mattel did terribly in the holiday quarter -- is it a buy on the sell-off?
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