This week, the world's top retailers will tell investors how the much-discussed holiday season went. Analysts expect a year-over-year gain of 1.3% for stores open at least a year, which of course uses a dismal 2008 as a benchmark.

The holiday shopping season is the last chance retailers get to pump up their financial statements before the close of their fiscal year, which usually comes at the end of January. For some retailers, up to 40% of their revenue comes in the weeks heading into Christmas.

Continue reading Retail Results to Come this Week, but Spring Is the Test

Retail Results to Come this Week, but Spring Is the Test originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sun, 03 Jan 2010 13:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Third quarter earnings preview for Tiffany

Third quarter earnings preview for Tiffany originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

As can be seen, if Stifel Nicolaus turns out to be right, then traders might have a winning transaction on their hands. But one thing that must be remembered is the arbitrage game going on here. Pepsi wants to buy Pepsi Bottling Group. The latter is, of course, arguing for a higher purchase price.

Continue reading PepsiCo's upgrade -- should you buy?

PepsiCo's upgrade -- should you buy? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 29 Jun 2009 14:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Patrick Byrne, the petulant chairman and CEO of the king of corporate crybabies, Overstock.com (NASDAQ: OSTK), issued yet another rambling press release on Friday, lamenting the fact that the company had reappeared on the Regulation SHO Threshold List after its stock price tanked following quarterly earnings that disappointed investors. Byrne said that ". . . the price of it fell 40% when we announced earnings that largely beat the Wall Street consensus expectations."

Regardless of how impressed Mr. Byrne was with yet another quarterly loss from his company, Stifel Nicolaus analyst Scott Devitt wasn't buying it. He downgraded the stock from hold to sell, pointing out that the company's revenue growth benefited from "fairly easy comps," adding that Overstock "may never achieve operating margins above 2%-3% at scale."

But never mind analyst predictions. Let's look at Patrick Byrne's predictions. In a 2001 interview with The Wall Street Transcript, Byrne said that by 2004 he "would want to see us well over $400 million and as profitable as hell. Making a ton of money. I want to see that next year."

That was seven years ago, and Overstock still has not reported anything resembling a profitable year, although Byrne is predicting that 2008 will be profitable in spite of a year-to-date loss of $10.4 million. Apparently Mr. Byrne is upset that no one is taking his forward-looking statements seriously anymore, but the fact is that, historically, Mr. Byrne's projections of profitability have been horrifically optimistic, and investors who believed him got their stuff handed to them.

If Mr. Byrne stopped wasting time lashing out at critics and devoted a few hours a day to backing up his big talk, the critics would go away and the stock would thrive.

Overstock back on naked shorting list: Byrne whines originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 28 Jul 2008 10:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Here, courtesy of The Bull & Bear Financial Report, 9 leading Wall Street experts -- Elaine Garzarelli, Richard Crippps, Sheldon Jacobs, Don Phillips, Richard Yamarone, High Johnson, Mark Johannessen, Curt Weil, and Paul Nolte -- offer their answers to the $10,000 question.

"Amid relentless volatility in 2007, every participant last December produced an increase over the past 12 months. Our pundits for a second consecutive year are spreading their bets because there are so many economic and political wild cards in the coming presidential election year.

Continue reading Where would you invest $10,000 for 2008?

Where would you invest $10,000 for 2008? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 01 Feb 2008 14:12:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

MOST NOTEWORTHY:

• Morgan Keegan upgraded Natural Gas Services Group Inc (AMEX: NGS), Basic Energy Services Inc (NYSE: BAS) and Complete Production Services Inc (NYSE: CPX) to Outperform from Market Perform and Patterson-UTI Energy Inc (NASDAQ: PTEN) to Market Perform from Underperform, as the firm has a bullish outlook for drilling activity in the back half of 2007 and into 2008.
• JP Morgan upgraded shares of both Compania de Minas Buenaventu (NYSE: BVN) and Goldcorp Inc (NYSE: GG) to Overweight from Neutral on valuation.
• Moody's was upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley, citing increased confidence in revenue outlook and growth drivers.

• Inverness Medical Innovations Inc (AMEX: IMA) was upgraded to Buy from Hold at Stifel Nicolaus.
• Credit Suisse upgraded shares of Johnson Controls Inc (NYSE: JCI) to Outperform from Neutral, citing growth outlook in the company's building efficiency business.
• Allianz SE (NYSE: AZ) was upgraded to Buy from Add at WestLB on valuation and the company's strong Q1 results.

Analyst upgrades 6-06-07: MCO, NGS; BAS and CPX originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 06 Jun 2007 10:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The folks at ThinkEquity believe that Texas Instruments (NYSE:TXN) is in for better days. They slapped an "accumulate" on the shares after carrying them as a "sell." The reason given was that TI's analog chip business should be getting better. ThinkEquity admits that the TI cell phone chip business is going to be rough for a long time. But, the research firm's sources say that the analog chip pick-up is broad and sustained. They put a new price target of $30 on the stock. It already trades above $28.

Almost any other research firm on Wall Street with an opinion on TI is worried about the stock. Stifel Nicolaus thinks TI's gross margins are down. Cathay Financial thinks that weakness in handset chips is continuing into 2007. And, Lehman Bros. has cut its earnings estimates for the big chip firm. Part of Lehman's analysis is that the analog business at TI is still "challenging."

Someone is right here and someone is wrong.

TI has two strikes on it. One is that it competes with Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM) in the handset chip market. QCOM has seen better days, but it has formidable market share in the handset market. In addition to that, almost no one thinks that handset giants Nokia (NYSE:NOK) and Motorola (NYSE:MOT) will do well in 2007. Margins are dropping because the demand for phones tends to be in emerging markets where cheap is better. Cheaper phones, cheaper chips.

Analog may do OK for TI. But, it can't beat the devil. The handset market is in for some rough quarters.

Douglas A. McIntyre is a partner at 24/7 Wall St.

Texas Instruments minority report originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sun, 21 Jan 2007 10:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Second analyst cautions on Sirius (SIRI) numbers originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 28 Nov 2006 11:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.