Live Nation Entertainment (LYV), a business centered on music concerts, one that counts Madonna and U2 among its portfolio of artists, promoted its fourth-quarter numbers earlier in the week. After browsing the data, and considering comments on guidance, I'm not sure I would want to buy the stock, even after seeing that it closed on Friday at a 52-week high.

According to BusinessWeek, Live Nation booked an operating loss of $64 million during the three-month period (adjusted operating income was positive, however). Sales went down well over 4%. Free cash flow for the full year, though, as detailed in a table right at the beginning of the press release, came in at nearly $59 million. That table also provides financial information for Ticketmaster, which recently merged with Live Nation.

Continue reading Live Nation: Buy or Avoid After Q4 Performance?

Live Nation: Buy or Avoid After Q4 Performance? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sat, 27 Feb 2010 12:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Analyst upgrades:

• Keefe Bruyette upgraded shares of Colonial Bancgroup (NYSE: CNB) to Outperform from Market Perform on valuation following the recent weakness and believes the company will be eligible to receive TARP funds. Morgan Stanley believes the company's valuation adequately reflects risk to the loan portfolio; the firm raised shares to Equal Weight from Underweight.
• Merrill upgraded Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC) and ASML Holding (NASDAQ: ASML) to Buy from Underperform and believes their valuation reflects the worst-case for bad news.
• Oppenheimer upgraded Trimble Navigation to Outperform from Perform on valuation as they believe the company's long-term growth story is intact.
• Celestica (NYSE: CLS) was upgraded to Sector Outperformer from Sector Performer at CIBC.
• KeyCorp (NYSE: KEY) was added to Goldman's Conviction Buy List.
• Wachovia raised EastGroup Properties (NYSE: EGP) to Outperform from Market Perform.

• UBS cut Barclays (NYSE: BCS) to Neutral from Buy as they believe capital raises could negatively impact earnings and that the dividend is likely to be cut.
• JP Morgan downgraded Discovery Holdings (NASDAQ: DISCA) to Underweight from Neutral based on valuation and the deteriorating economic outlook.
• Friedman Billings downgraded shares of Janus Capital (NYSE: JNS) to Underperform from Market Perform and lowered its target to $7 from $23 as they see further risk to the downside following the company's weaker-than-expected results.
• LKQ Corp (NASDAQ: LKQX) was cut to Sector Perform from Outperform at RBC Capital.
• Affymetrix (NASDAQ: AFFX) was lowered to Sell from Hold at Deutsche Bank.
• RightNow Tech (NASDAQ: RNOW) was downgraded at Baird to Neutral from Outperform.

Continue reading Analyst calls: CNB, ERIC, ASML, TRMB, BCS, DISCA, JNS, RGEN, GPS and NTY

Analyst calls: CNB, ERIC, ASML, TRMB, BCS, DISCA, JNS, RGEN, GPS and NTY originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 24 Oct 2008 10:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

"Seeking to put some of our capital back to work, today we're going to step up and purchase shares of DirecTV (NYSE: DTV)," says Bill Martin.

In his FindProfit newsletter, he explains, "We believe that investors are beginning to realize that the competitive worries for satellite are overdone. In fact, satellite has actually picked up market share over the past year.

Via technology upgrades and strategic partnerships, he notes that DTV is poised to accelerate its competitive edge in the high-definition TV marketplace, while increasing the penetration of a variety of product 'add-ons,' such as high-definition boxes, DVRs, etc., that should boost margins.

He suggests, "As John Malone has done at other entities where he has significant influence such as Liberty Capital (NASDAQ: LCAPA), Liberty Global (NASDAQ: LBTYA), Expedia (NASDAQ: EXPE), and IAC\Interactive (NASDAQ: IACI), we expect DTV to move to buy-in significant amounts of stock over the coming year as it re-levers its balance sheet."

Continue reading Tune in to DirectTV

Tune in to DirectTV originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 17 Jul 2007 11:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.