DividendStocks posts
FeedPosted Oct 29th 2009 6:00PM by Steven Mallas (RSS feed)
Filed under: Earnings reports, Kellogg Co (K), General Mills (GIS), Kraft Foods'A' (KFT)
Kellogg Company (NYSE: K) didn't need a hearty breakfast to get its stock going today (although I'm sure it had one anyway). All it needed was a reasonably healthy earnings report. Judging by how the stock is performing, I think the company got one.
For the third quarter, Kellogg saw flat sales growth. However, take out currency effects and acquisitions, and you've got a 3% expansion rate on the top line. Well, that isn't so robust, either, but let's head to the bottom line. Earnings per share came in at 94 cents, representative of a 6% increase. Not so bad, and according to Mark Fightmaster's preview, that was a dime better than what analysts wanted to see.
Continue reading Kellogg's Q3 top line not great, but bottom line beats projections
Posted Oct 27th 2009 5:00PM by Steven Mallas (RSS feed)
Filed under: Earnings reports, Google (GOOG), Apple Inc (AAPL), AT and T (T), Verizon Communications (VZ)
Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ) issued Q3 data on Monday. According to the press release, the telecommunications entity made, on an adjusted basis, 60 cents per share. Disappointing, since that's six pennies less than last year's comparable number. However, it was a penny ahead of analyst expectations, according to Reuters.
Of course, when discussing Verizon, what tends to receive focus is cash flow. As we all know, the company is a famous dividend play. Many investors consider this angle to be not only valuable, but an added safety element as well.
Continue reading Verizon tops Q3 profit estimate, but it's all about the dividend
Posted Oct 22nd 2009 5:00PM by Steven Mallas (RSS feed)
Filed under: Earnings reports, Johnson and Johnson (JNJ), Procter and Gamble (PG), Kimberly-Clark (KMB)
Kimberly-Clark Corporation (NYSE: KMB), a consumer products entity whose colleagues include Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG) and Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ), is up today on third-quarter results. At the time of this writing, my screen was showing shares of Kimberly-Clark higher by a little under 6%.
According to the corporate press release, sales declined 1.7%. Not a great start, but Kimberly-Clark highlighted a better metric: organic sales increased 3%, helped along by price increases. Luckily, sales volume didn't fare too badly; they were essentially flat.
Continue reading Kimberly-Clark high on Q3 data
Posted Oct 21st 2009 9:00AM by Steven Mallas (RSS feed)
Filed under: Earnings reports, Industry, Caterpillar (CAT)
Caterpillar (NYSE: CAT) is doing great. The stock is hot, and even though the company is still reporting sales and earnings declines, you just know that the fundamentals will eventually get better. In the meantime, management is doing its best to beat earnings expectations.
Yesterday, management succeeded. For the third quarter, according to our Closing Bell post, Caterpillar said it made 64 cents per share. Analysts were expecting only 6 cents per share. Well, something was off there, huh? Anyway, according to the actual press release, sales decreased over 40%, and per-share profit was off by 15%, but really, it didn't matter to the market. Shares of the heavy equipment maker closed higher by 3%, on heavy volume.
Continue reading Caterpillar exceeds expectations: Too late to buy?
Posted Oct 16th 2009 1:20PM by Steven Halpern (RSS feed)
Filed under: Newsletters, Mutual funds, ETF Investing, Stocks to Buy
"It's time to take some profits and play defense for a while," says Glenn Rogers, adding, "Fortunately, we can hedge our bets by taking some profits and building cash reserves and reinvesting in more defensive securities."
In The Internet Wealh Builder, the advisor suggests, a trio of conservative dividend-focused exchange-traded funds.
He explains, "Everybody I talk to these days is nervous, although for different reasons. Some are nervous because they feel left behind. They sat on the sidelines and missed the incredible rally we've had since March. Now they're afraid they won't have a chance to participate because the market has been refusing to correct.
"Others are nervous because they made a pot of money in the rebound and they're afraid they could lose it all in a replay of last year's meltdown. Meanwhile, there some relatively low-risk ETFs where you could park some money while we see how all this plays out.
Continue reading Defensive bets: A trio of dividend funds
Posted Sep 23rd 2009 8:30AM by Steven Mallas (RSS feed)
Filed under: Earnings reports, Campbell Soup (CPB), ConAgra Foods (CAG), Kraft Foods'A' (KFT)
ConAgra Foods (NYSE: CAG) issued Q1 numbers on Tuesday. The market wasn't too impressed by them, but they weren't bad, actually. Net sales were lackluster, I'll admit. They dropped about 3%. Earnings per share from continuing operations, on the other hand, really shined. They increased well over 60% to 38 cents. Net income from continuing operations on a dollar basis soared over 50%.
Even better, that 38-cents-per-share statistic was firmly ahead of Wall Street expectations. According to our earnings preview, analysts were looking for 34 cents per share.
Continue reading ConAgra increases profit in the first quarter
Posted Sep 3rd 2009 3:00PM by Steven Mallas (RSS feed)
Filed under: Earnings reports, ConAgra Foods (CAG), Kraft Foods'A' (KFT)
Del Monte Foods (NYSE: DLM), a supermarket brand whose colleagues include ConAgra (NYSE: CAG) and Kraft (NYSE: KFT), was way up in afternoon trading. When a stock like Del Monte gains 9% on great volume, you know something big must have happened. Well, it was the company's fiscal Q1 results that made investors want to buy today. After checking over the news, I can honestly say that I see the market's point.
Sales increased 12% during the quarter, and earnings from continuing operations calculated out to 30 cents per share, a huge improvement over the loss observed in the comparable period. According to Earnings.com, Wall Street was only looking for a measly four pennies for the bottom line.
Continue reading Del Monte up big on Q1 data
Posted Aug 20th 2009 5:30PM by Steven Mallas (RSS feed)
Filed under: Earnings reports, Campbell Soup (CPB), ConAgra Foods (CAG), Kraft Foods'A' (KFT)
H.J. Heinz Company (NYSE: HNZ), a food company that shares space at the supermarket with products from Kraft Foods, Inc. (NYSE: KFT), ConAgra (NYSE: CAG), and Campbell Soup (NYSE: CPB), issued first-quarter data on Thursday. Even though the effect of currency translations continues to put a cloud over the top-line performance, management did end up beating earnings expectations.
Net sales came in flat, and net income was 67 cents per share. Analysts were expecting 5 cents less, according to Earnings.com. Shareholders should be happy about that. When I covered Heinz's last quarter, I noted that expectations were essentially beat by a penny.
Continue reading Heinz wins analyst game in Q1, generates higher level of cash
Posted Jul 23rd 2009 3:20PM by Steven Mallas (RSS feed)
Filed under: Earnings reports, Colgate-Palmolive (CL), Procter and Gamble (PG), Kimberly-Clark (KMB)
Kimberly-Clark (NYSE: KMB), a consumer-products company that counts Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG) and Colgate-Palmolive (NYSE: CL) as colleagues, announced Q2 results on Thursday. The performance wasn't spectacular, but management successfully defended the bottom line from the recession by instituting pricing strategies that leveraged the brand equity of the company's portfolio.
The bottom line fell, of course, but probably not as far as it would have if there weren't any pricing mechanisms in place. Earnings per share came in at 97 cents. This was six cents lower than last year's adjusted Q2 income. Revenues were challenged by dollar fluctuations, dropping well over 5%. However, here's the silver lining: organic sales increased almost 3%, even with volumes on the decline.
Continue reading Kimberly-Clark up on Q2 numbers
Posted Jul 20th 2009 4:15PM by Steven Mallas (RSS feed)
Filed under: Earnings reports, Forecasts, Coca-Cola (KO), PepsiCo (PEP)
Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO), the main thorn in PepsiCo's (NYSE: PEP) side, will report earnings for the second quarter on Tuesday July 21. Don't expect any profit growth, however. According to Earnings.com, Coke made $1.01 per share in the year-ago period. Analysts believe that the beverage maker will only deliver 89 cents per share tomorrow. That's a pretty steep drop.
But those who own Coke very often hold Coke for the long term, so any earnings release is looked at in a specific context: so long as nothing seems too out of the ordinary with the numbers, the original thesis for buying will be considered intact, and no action will be necessary. In fact, if the market wants to sell Coke off for one reason or another, then it can mean that a buying opportunity has been gifted to those who are indeed keeping shares for a while.
Continue reading Coca-Cola's Q2 report: Will the beverage giant beat expectations?
Posted Jul 13th 2009 1:00PM by Steven Mallas (RSS feed)
Filed under: Earnings reports, Forecasts, Pfizer (PFE), Johnson and Johnson (JNJ), Procter and Gamble (PG)
Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ), a company that counts Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG) and Pfizer (NYSE: PFE) as colleagues, will report results for the second quarter on Tuesday, July 14. JNJ is expected to post a bit of a profit decline. Last year's Q2, according to Earnings.com, saw the health-care business earn $1.18 per share. This time around, analysts are thinking that JNJ will do somewhere around $1.11 per share.
Will JNJ beat the analysts? It's quite possible, since the company has a good record on this count. As a matter of fact, JNJ beat predictions by four cents back in April. Sales, however, came in a little weak. Interestingly enough, the market didn't really care too much about the earnings performance on that day. Shares had rallied a bit in pre-market trading, but they closed slightly down by the end of the regular session. I found a similar situation back in January.
Continue reading Earnings preview: Johnson & Johnson could surprise Wall Street
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