The McGraw-Hill Companies (NYSE: MHP), a distributor of business information and educational materials which counts Scholastic (NASDAQ: SCHL) as a related stock, issued third-quarter results earlier today. Sales contracted over 8%. Net income on a dollar basis dropped almost 14%. Earnings per diluted share decreased a very unlucky 13% to $1.07. At least expectations were taken out. Earnings.com indicates a beat of two pennies for per-share profit.

The declines are pretty understandable. When you think about McGraw-Hill, you understand fairly quickly that the company's business model is tied closely to the economy. Education markets must be tough given all the budget cuts happening in school systems across the country. Plus, spending by administrators is probably done these days very slowly and carefully.

Continue reading McGraw-Hill comes out ahead of estimates in Q3, but stock is having trouble

McGraw-Hill comes out ahead of estimates in Q3, but stock is having trouble originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 26 Oct 2009 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

MOST NOTEWORTHY:

• Keefe Bruyette upgraded shares of IberiaBank (NASDAQ: IBKC) to Market Perform from Underperform after the company announced that Pulaski has assumed the insured deposits of ANB Financial of Bentonville, Arkansas.
  
• KeyBanc upgraded Dynamic Materials (NASDAQ: BOOM) to Buy from Hold citing stability in base business, valuation, and the added benefit associated with a European competitor being acquired.
  
• Cowen raised Barr Pharma (NYSE: BRL) to Outperform from Neutral citing the recent pullback.

• Goldman added McGraw-Hill (NASDAQ: MHP) to its Conviction Buy List.
  
• RBC Capital raised RadioShack (NYSE: RSH) to Sector Perform from Underperform.
  
• Sirius Satellite (NASDAQ: SIRI) was upgraded at Merrill Lynch to Neutral from Sell.

Analyst upgrades: SIRI, RSH, MHP, IBKC, BOOM and BRL originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 13 May 2008 11:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

MAJOR PAPERS:

• The active ingredient in Baxter International Inc's (NYSE: BAX) generic version of the anticlotting drug heparin, under investigation for four deaths and hundreds of bad reactions, was made in China, the Wall Street Journal reported.
• Structured investment vehicles that provide short term debt to fund the purchases of municipal bonds and student loans are under increasing pressure, according to the Wall Street Journal's "Heard on the Street". Citigroup Incorporated (NYSE: C), JP Morgan Chase & Co (NYSE: JPM) and Merrill Lynch & Co Inc (NYSE: MER) are among the banks that could be affected.

• The New York Times reported that Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE: HPQ) has settled with The New York Times Company (NYSE: NYT) and McGraw Hill Companies Incorporated's (NYSE: MHP) BusinessWeek journalists related to a spying scandal that stemmed from obtaining telephone records. The involved parties did not disclose the amount of the settlement.

• Mike Zafirovski, CEO of Nortel Networks Corporation (NYSE: NT), said the company would examine possible opportunities to be taken over "when they arise." Mr. Zafirovski did not comment on rumors of a Motorola Inc (NYSE: MOT) merger, Reuters reported.

Newspaper wrap-up: Investigated ingredient in Baxter's generic heparin drug made in China originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 14 Feb 2008 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

For 25 years, Steven Halpern, editor of TheStockAdvisors.com, has surveyed the leading financial newsletter advisors asking for their favorite stocks for the coming year. This article is one of 100+ ideas in the Best Stocks for 2008 report.

"McGraw-Hill (NYSE: MHP) is my top conservative pick for 2008," says Nathan Slaughter, editor of Half-Priced Stocks. "If you want to beat the market in 2008, then you might start with the one company that actually owns the market, or at least the S&P 500 Index; McGraw holds the keys to the widely used stock barometer, as well as other benchmarks from the ubiquitous Standard & Poor's family.

"From futures contracts to ETFs, there is a staggering $5 trillion of investable assets linked to these indices -- which generate piles of recurring royalty and licensing revenues.

"Elsewhere, the firm is also a leading provider of textbooks and other supplemental learning materials. There are roughly 55 million students enrolled in grades K-12, and state governments currently spend more than $8,500 per student each year -- a total that is forecast to hit $11,000 within the next seven years.

Continue reading Best Stocks for 2008: Value investor votes for McGraw-Hill (MHP)

Best Stocks for 2008: Value investor votes for McGraw-Hill (MHP) originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 19 Dec 2007 11:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Bloomberg News reports that Connecticut's attorney general has subpoenaed McGraw Hill (NYSE: MHP)'s Standard & Poor's related to an investigation into credit rating.

The legal question is whether S&P issued overly rosy credit ratings on subprime mortgage-backed securities (MBSs) that later lost more than half their value. S&P and its peers were competing for the lucrative ratings fees paid by the investment banks that underwrote the MBSs. And it has been alleged that the winning firms offered the highest ratings.

If the MBSs were indeed the financial equivalent of toxic waste -- then the AAA ratings that S&P and its peers awarded to the MBSs could be thought of as golden wrapping paper. This gold wrap was particularly useful to the investment banks when they visited MBS customers in Europe and Australia.

Rather than get into the details of what was inside the gold-wrapped boxes, these customers simply relied on the assurances of the MBS sales people that the "investment" had been blessed by S&P. No need to dirty themselves with unwrapping the box and exposing the toxic waste within.

Peter Cohan is President of Peter S. Cohan & Associates. He also teaches management at Babson College and edits The Cohan Letter. He has no financial interest in the securities mentioned in this post.

Did Standard & Poor's wrap toxic securities in gold? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 26 Oct 2007 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Moody's (MCO) and S&P set to be grilled on Capitol Hill originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 26 Sep 2007 09:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

MAJOR PAPERS:

• Amid mounting criticism for its role in the subprime crisis, McGraw Hill Companies Inc (NYSE: MHP) replaced Kathleen Corbet, the president of Standard & Poors, with Deven Sharma, a McGraw Hill senior VP who has been with S&P since the end of last year, reported the Wall Street Journal.
• Barron's Online's "Inside Scoop" column reported that Aeropostale Inc (NYSE: ARO) CFO Michael Cunningham sold $2.1M in stock Monday at an average price of $22.43 per share, according to SEC data.

• Indian IT outsourcing companies Infosys Technologies (NASDAQ: INFY) and Wipro Limited (NYSE: WIT) have reportedly both shown interest in buying out the US-based high-end analytics company MarketRx, which is believed to be worth between $150M and $160M, reported the Economic Times.
• The New York Times reported that General Electric Company's (NYSE: GE) NBC Universal has decided not to renew its contract to sell digital downloads of television shows on Apple Inc's (NASDAQ: AAPL) iTunes online store.
• From BusinessWeek's "Inside Wall Street" column:
  
• Coca-Cola Company (NYSE: KO) is making a comeback, thanks to its huge global distribution edge.
  
• Southern Copper Corporation (NYSE: PCU) is a good copper play, as it is undervalued and ignored, especially considering its 6.21% dividend yield.
  
• Ariad Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: ARIA) may be one of the more underappreciated and undervalued biotech stocks around.

Newspaper wrap-up: NBC does not renew iTunes contract with Apple originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 31 Aug 2007 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

More data on subprime mortgages originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 26 Mar 2007 10:56:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Time Warner after the bell 09-08-06: another good day

Time Warner after the bell 09-08-06: another good day originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 08 Sep 2006 16:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.