Forget about Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO)'s Jerry Yang being pushed out. His firm is an internet company. CEOs in the heart of the tech industry may begin losing their jobs in greater number as the recession takes hold and boards seek new management that can contain costs and hold investors.
Symantec (NASDAQ: SYMC)'s CEO stepped down yesterday. He said the move had been planned. Maybe. Maybe not.
According toThe Wall Street Journal, "Symantec Corp. said Chief Executive John W. Thompson will retire at the end of the company's fiscal year in April."
Not mentioned in the announcement was the fact that the company's stock is off 45% in the last three months. SYMC's direct competitor McAfee (NYSE: MFE) is only down 25%, about the same as the DJIA. Symantec recently announced net profits lower than those in the two immediately previous quarters.
The sacking of execs may be moving from finance to tech.
Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.
Another volatile week had passed over Wall Street, but by the end of it investors started breathing a sigh of relief in anticipation of the bailout plan. Those hopes were shattered Thursday night. Many believe that if the bailout plan doesn't get approved soon, the landscape on Wall Street will be very different, changing even more than it already has. The consequences of a financial meltdown would reverberate throughout the economy, here and globally.
Once again, BloggingStocks bloggers have looked at different stocks, trying to find the ones you may want to consider during these troubled times should you find yourself with some extra cash. Nerves of steel are a requirement for any investor these days.
Here are some picks from the past week:
Johnson and Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) - not only do Ron Rowland and Brandon Clay remind us that Johnson and Johnson was rated the world's most respected company, Cramer says that JNJ "is a super stock. Well managed, great earnings, good pipeline ..."
Monsanto (NYSE: MON) - as the undisputed leader in the genetically modified (GM) seed industry, Yiannis Mostrous and Roger Conrad think long-term-oriented investors will be rewarded handsomely with Monsanto.
Posted Sep 23rd 2008 10:30AM by Tom Taulli Filed under: Deals
McAfee (NYSE: MFE) is the No. 2 player in the security software market. But the company's CEO, Dave DeWalt, definitely wants to be No. 1. In fact, he's been putting together a string of acquisitions to pump things up.
The latest deal came this week: McAfee purchased Secure Computing Corp. (NASDAQ: SCUR) for $465 million. On news of the deal, the company's shares spiked 23% to $5.58.
Secure Computing itself is an amalgam of a variety of acquisitions. For the most part, the company's products help deal with e-mail intrusions and network security. However, Secure Computing has had difficulties integrating its deals. As a result, the company has missed expectations on several earnings releases, which put lots of pressure on the stock price.
For some more insight on McAfee's latest deal I turned to Paul Roberts, Senior Analyst of Enterprise Security at The 451 Group, who said:
"Consolidation has been a long time coming in the enterprise security market. Despite persistent rumors that it might be acquired by a much bigger player, McAfee shows all intentions of staying independent and being one of the survivors, rather than road kill, as the enterprise security market consolidates. In the last twelve months, the company has made bold bets on data encryption and anti data leakage. This deal re-introduces McAfee as a player in the network security space after it was forced to downsize a few years back. We're interested to see how the company knits together the disparate technologies it has acquired."
Goldman upgraded shares of Novartis (NYSE: NVS) to Buy from Neutral as they believe the Alcon (NYSE: ACL) acquisition has diversified the company's business.
Tyson Foods (NYSE: TSN) was upgraded to Equal Weight from Underweight on valuation.
JP Morgan raised Albermarle (NYSE: ALB) to Overweight from Neutral.
BMO Capital upgraded Wynn Resorts (NASDAQ: WYNN) to Outperform from Market Perform.
Morgan Stanley downgraded Reynolds American (NYSE: RAI) to Underweight from Equal Weight based on the impact from Altria's (NYSE: MO) purchase of competitor UST (NYSE: UST), which may result in pricing pressure.
Goldman downgraded AstraZeneca (NYSE: AZN) to Sell from Neutral as they believe shares do not support near-term fundamentals.
Max Capital (NASDAQ: MXGL) was downgraded to neutral from Buy at Banc of America.
AudioCodes (NASDAQ: AUDC) was lowered at Merrill to Neutral from Buy.
For David DeWalt, the CEO of McAfee (NYSE: MFE), it's been an extremely busy quarter. He traveled to 15 countries and met with over 500 customers. He even gave 11 executive keynote addresses (actually, I'm not sure if DeWalt sleeps).
Well, the hard work is paying off, as seen with McAfee's latest quarter results. Revenues came to $396.8 million, up 26% over the past year. Earnings were $47.8 million, or $0.30 per share (see more of today's earnings news).
McAfee continues to build on its product offerings (the company is the #2 player in the security space). In fact, the company snagged 21 deals over $1 million.
What's more, McAfee announced the purchase of Reconnex Inc. for $46 million. Essentially, the company develops sophisticated technology to monitor data on networks (which is done through appliance computers). Reconnex has about 1.5 million managed users.
Interestingly enough, DeWalt wrote a blog post about the deal (yes, I'm not sure how he finds the time to blog too). According to him:
"Reconnex, coupled with our current data protection solutions, gives us the network and endpoint presence that will allow us to leapfrog all other data protection vendors and reinforces our position as the largest dedicated security provider."
So far in today's trading, McAfee's stock is up 8.43% to $35.51.
Friedman Billings believes Aeropostale (NYSE:ARO) has an impressive back-to-school floorset and that momentum should carry into the fall. Additionally, the firm, which initiated shares with an Outperform rating and $38 target, expects the company to buyback shares.
Thomas Weisel believes ImClone (NASDAQ:IMCL) is attractively valued as Erbitux is positioned to capitalize on a number of label-expanding opportunities and that concerns of KRAS-related revenue loss in colorectal cancer and the clinical utility of FLEX lung cancer data are overstated. Shares were assumed with an Overweight rating and $50 target.
Credit Suisse downgraded Nokia (NYSE:NOK) from "outperform" to "neutra", according toBriefing.com. The news service also reports that Bernstein upgraded Bristol-Myers (NYSE:BMY).
McAfee (NYSE:MFE) was started as "outperform" at R.W.Baird, according to Briefing.com. The financial website also reports that Motorola (NYSE:MOT) was started as "underperform" at Credit Suisse.
Shares of Internet security company McAfee Inc. (NYSE: MFE) have been tumbling after the company reported yesterday after the market closed that its first-quarter profit slipped 27%, hurt by higher expenses related to product development and marketing. The world's second-largest security software maker also slashed its full year earnings guidance, prompting investors to pull the stock down in morning trading.
McAfee said its profit dropped during the first quarter to $31.6 million, or 19 cents per share, compared with $43.4 million, or 27 cents per share reported in the same period a year ago. Excluding one-time items, the company's earnings would have come at 43 cents per share, missing analysts' predictions for a profit of 45 cents per share in the quarter.
The second-biggest maker of security software did post a respectable growth of 17% for its first-quarter revenue which jumped to $370 million. This was above analysts' predictions for quarterly revenue of $352 million, according to Reuters Estimates. However, McAfee's operating costs during this period also increased to $226 million.
MOST NOTEWORTHY: Enterprise Software Sector, NewMarket and Great Plans Energy were today's noteworthy initiations:
Stanford believes Software companies could be better positioned to withstand an economic slowdown than most believe, but feels demand is positioned to slow in 2008. They are "somewhat cautious" on the sector and initiated coverage of Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) and McAfee (NYSE:MFE) with Buy ratings and Symantec (NASDAQ:SYMC) with a Hold rating.
Oppenheimer initiated NewMarket (NYSE:NEU) with an Outperform rating and $68 target, as they believes it is an underfollowed specialty chemical company with improving fundamentals and low investor expectations. They think the company's free cash flow could fuel large share buybacks and strategic acquisitions.
Great Plains Energy (NYSE:GXP) was started with an Outperform rating at Wachovia, as they are positive on the company's strong rate base growth and valuation.
MOST NOTEWORTHY: Stryker, General Dynamics and Garmin were today's noteworthy upgrades:
Baird upgraded shares of Stryker (NYSE: SYK) to Outperform from Neutral as they believe the company's manufacturing problems are more manageable than expected and that supply constraints involving the Trident acetabular cup appear more limited.
Wachovia raised General Dynamics (NYSE: GD) to Outperform from Market Perform, citing valuation, likely resumption in buybacks, and conservative guidance.
Oppenheimer upgraded shares of Garmin (NASDAQ: GRMN) to Outperform from Perform on valuation, as they believe sentiment has troughed and that downward revisions are already priced into shares.
OTHER UPGRADES:
Merrill raised Turkcell (NYSE: TKC) to Buy from Neutral.
Lehman upgraded HealthSouth (NYSE: HLS) to Overweight from Underweight.
Bear Stearns upgraded McAfee (NYSE: MFE) to Outperform from Peer Perform.
MOST NOTEWORTHY: Harley-Davidson, JP Morgan Chase and AMBAC were today's noteworthy downgrades:
Citigroup downgraded shares of Harley-Davidson (NYSE: HOG) to Sell from Hold and lowered their target to $36 from $51 on expectations for sluggish U.S. retail sales in Q4. They expect U.S. retail sales to decline 10%-12% in the quarter.
JP Morgan (NYSE: JPM) was lowered to Perform from Outperform at Oppenheimer, citing the company's dramatic increase in consumer losses.
AMBAC (NYSE: ABK) was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at William Blair following news of the company's expected loss and CEO departure, given the lack of visibility.
OTHER DOWNGRADES:
Adobe (NASDAQ: ADBE) and McAfee (NYSE: MFE) Were downgraded to Neutral from Buy at UBS.
Lehman downgraded Decode Genetics (NASDAQ: DCGN) to Underweight from Equal Weight.
Oppenheimer downgraded Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) to Perform from Outperform.
Another volatile week had passed over Wall Street, but by the end of it investors started breathing a sigh of relief in anticipation of the bailout plan. Those hopes were shattered Thursday night. Many believe that if the bailout plan doesn't get approved soon, the landscape on Wall Street will be very different, changing even more than it already has. The consequences of a financial meltdown would reverberate throughout the economy, here and globally.
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Cramer on BloggingStocks: A troika of opportunity and trouble 
Before the bell: Wall Street headed higher; automakers, retailers in focus
Waiting for the other shoe to drop: The looming credit crisis
