The Associated Press reports that BloggingStocks' parent, Time Warner (NYSE: TWX), beat Wall Street expectations by a penny a share. But its profit was still down -- 26% thanks to declining subscriber fees at AOL and lower advertising revenues at magazines like Time and Sports Illustrated.
But after adjusting for one-time gains, Wall Street was expecting Time Warner to make 23 cents a share and it actually earned a penny more. In addition, revenues rose 5% to $11.6 billion, 1.2% more than expected.
The bad news is that AOL's subscription revenue fell 29% which drove a 36% decline in operating income. As I posted, the 2006 change in strategy to emphasize advertising over subscriptions has not been able to make up for $2 billion in lost revenue. Advertising revenue rose a mere 2% to $530 million -- not enough to make up the difference.
What does the future hold? Time Warner is selling the 84% of its cable operations that it still owns to shareholders later in 2008. Cable's revenues grew 7% on "increases in cable, Internet phone and video-on-demand fees." And it is trying to sell the dial-up portion of AOL to Earthlink (NASDAQ: ELNK).
There was an interesting read over at Slashdot.org today. In a story last night from the Associated Press, it looks like Time Warner Cable Inc. (NYSE: TWC) may be testing out a web metering service for its internet access.
The company is testing a service with new Time Warner Cable Internet subscribers in Beaumont, Texas where customers will have a monthly allowance for the amount of data with a $1.00 charge per gigabyte. The company had already warned back in January that it was going to test rates and test some metered and tiered internet access services, so this isn't likely to be a bomb dropping into the school yard.
Slower services of 768 kbps with a 5-gigabyte monthly allowance are going to run $29.95, while their fastest and larger service with fast downloads at up to 15 megabits per second and a 40-gigabyte cap will run $54.90 per month.
Time Warner (NYSE: TWX) declared a one-time dividend of $10.9 billion to its stockholders, payable just prior to separation of Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC); TWX will receive $9.25 billion of Time Warner Cable's dividend.
TWX overall option implied volatility of 29 is below its 26-week average of 32 according to Track Data, suggesting decreasing price risk.
Option Update is provided by Stock Specialist Paul Foster of theflyonthewall.com
According to people familiar with the matter, Robert Verrone, one of the most zealous commercial real-estate lenders during the industry's boom, will leave Wachovia Corporation (NYSE: WB) within the next week, the Wall Street Journal reported.
WEB SITES:
Bloomberg reported that the Department of Justice is probing whether UBS AG (NYSE: UBS) helped clients evade American taxes. In an e-mailed statement, the firm said one senior bank employee was "briefly detained" by authorities.
Bloomberg also reported that Vallejo, California's city council voted to go into bankruptcy. Officials said that after talks with labor unions failed to win salary concessions from police and fire fighters, the city does not have enough money to pay its bills.
According to a rumor, TechCrunch reported that the Yahoo Inc (NASDAQ: YHOO) board of directors yesterday authorized Yahoo chairman Roy Bostock, rather than CEO Jerry Yang, to call Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) CEO Steve Ballmer about re-starting negotiations.
On Wednesday morning pre-market, we'll get to see earnings out of Time Warner Cable Inc. (NYSE: TWC). The estimates for the cable giant from First Call are $0.22 EPS on $4.15 billion in revenues. Next quarter estimates are $0.34 EPS on $4.31 billion in revenues. Estimates for fiscal Dec-2008 are $1.27 EPS on $17.25 billion in revenues.
Analysts have an average price target north of $34.00. In late January, UBS initiated to a neutral rating and in early February, Cowen & Co. initiated with a neutral rating as well.
After trading in the upper thirties and low forties early last summer, the stock has been consistently trading in the mid-twenties over the last six months. Time Warner Cable's 52-week trading range is $21.95 to $42.11.
Last Wednesday, Time Warner Cable was among one of four cable companies to pull out of a joint venture with Sprint Nextel (NYSE: S), called Pivot. Pivot was an attempt for telephone and cable companies to compete with multiple providers, such as AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) uVerse and the service from Verizon Communications (NYSE: VZ). Verizon's strong earnings this morning were driven partially by its fiber-optic TV service. FiOS drove the revenue growth, with customer additions to reach a total of 1.2 million customers.
Comcast Corp. (NASDAQ: CMCSA) stock is falling on reports that the company is in talks with Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC) to fund a new wireless Internet program. CMCSA would invest up to $1 billion in the project, a nationwide network using WiMax technology that would be operated by Sprint Nextel (NYSE: S) and Clearwire Corp. (NASDAQ: CLWR). Judging by this morning's action, investors do not seem very enthusiastic about the plan. If you think this stock won't be rising too far in the coming months, then it could be a good time to look at a bearish hedged play on CMCSA.
After hitting a one-year high of $29.41 in July, the stock hit a one-year low of $16.11 in January. This morning, CMCSA opened at $20.07. So far today the stock has hit a low of $19.30 and a high of $20.14. As of 12:15, CMCSA is trading at $19.59, down 0.95 (-4.6%). The chart for CMCSA looks bullish and steady, while S&P gives the stock a negative 2 STARS (out of 5) sell rating.
For a bearish hedged play on this stock, I would consider a July bear-call credit spread above the $22.50 range. A bear-call credit spread is an options position that combines the purchase and sale of call options to hedge risk in case the stock doesn't do what you think but still leverage nice returns. For this particular trade, we will make an 11.1% return in 4 months as long as CMCSA is below $22.50 at July expiration. Comcast would have to rise by more than 15% before we would start to lose money.
Carl Icahn's ICAHN CAPITAL, LP has released its total holdings for the period ending December 31, 2007. What is most interesting is that, despite the many other positions, Mr. Icahn still has a sizable stake in both Time Warner stocks -- the parent company and the cable subsidiary.
As of December 31, 2007, Mr. Icahn lists the following positions:
This is much less than his prior investments in Time Warner Inc. and it is not a big enough stake to give him a great deal of influence behind the scenes at the company. But combined, these investments still represent some $333 million dollars. That's serious money.
As of 12:15 p.m. today, TWX is at $16.44, down 14 cents today and still battling back from a 52-week low of $14.64 reached on Jan. 23.
Suntrust is positive on FPIC Insurance Group Inc's (NASDAQ: FPIC) valuation and book value growth. The firm initiated shares with a Buy rating and $50 target.
Battling Baidu.com Inc (NASDAQ: BIDU) in China with little success, Google Inc (NASDAQ: GOOG) is working with a Chinese company to offer free licensed music downloads, the Wall Street Journal reported. The new service is expected to be launched in several weeks.
OTHER PAPERS:
BHP Billiton Limited (NYSE: BHP) raised its bid for mining company Rio Tinto Plc (NYSE: RTP) to more than GBP70B. Meanwhile, the UK Times reported that Rio's new Chinese shareholder was preparing a counter bid for Rio.
The Washington Post reported that Time Warner Inc (NYSE: TWX) CEO Jeffrey Bewkes is expected to announce a plan today to sell or spin off Time Warner Cable Inc (NYSE: TWC). Bewkes also is likely to signal plans to break up AOL in the coming year.
It's been a while since we've seen sharp gains on shares of cable companies. UBS is holding its Global Media Week and Communications Conference today in New York. Earlier today, Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC) surprised the markets today during a CNBC video interview when CEO Glenn Britt said that Time Warner wouldn't be in the bidding for more wireless spectrum in the FCC auction. The company had been a bidder before.
Comcast Inc. (NASDAQ: CMCSA) is also opting out of a wireless spectrum bidding. The truth is that both cable companies already have access to spectrum if needed, and there is still more spectrum available on existing infrastructure that can be used if needed.
One interesting development was when Glenn Britt described the demand for a cable company to need wireless as a quadruple play against the telecoms, who now offer video solutions that compete against cable. The old triple- play is still very under-penetrated on a nationwide basis.
Maybe it pays to be patient rather than spending a few hundred million here and a couple billion there. Sooner or later it adds up to real money. Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) has said it would be participating in the spectrum auction in January for the new, more powerful 700-MHz spectrum. If the Googlesaurs want to be rewarded similarly, maybe they'd determine it is cheaper and easier to partner for spectrum openly rather than the spend-spend-spend model.
Time Warner Cable shares are up nearly 4% to $27.05 today, and Comcast shares are up some 2.5% at $21.05. Google shares are down almost 1% at $687.15.
I've written about BigBand Networks (NASDAQ: BBND) before on BloggingStocks here. While I don't own the company, it remains on my watchlist because I do think that the technology provider for the cable industry has the makings of influencing the future of content and advertising delivery for the cable industry. As I wrote previously, the company has some operational issues to sort out as it matures as a publicly-traded firm.
Yesterday, BigBand announced it has sold its multi-media router technology to five more Chinese cable operators. The company said that it landed new customers Tibet Cable, Tiacang Cable, Jiayuguan Cable, Nanchang Cable and Luan Cable. BigBand says that with these customers it serves more than 40 service providers in China.
Recently, the company announced that Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA) has chosen BigBand as its switched digital video vendor. This is another feather in the hat for a company that is the arms dealer in the arms race between telcos and cable companies to offer video services and applications. With the most widely deployed switched video solution (SDV), BigBand has seven of the top ten largest service providers in the U.S., selling to companies like Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC) and Verizon (NYSE: VZ). The company is also positioned to benefit from what analysts call TelcoTV (video delivered over DSL).
BigBand is down over 65% this year. It's possible that the stock is bottoming out,here but it's worth losing some points to the upside and waiting to see if management regains credibility by smoothing out its earnings performance.
Zack Miller is the Managing Editor of IsraelNewsletter.com and a former equity analyst for a leading multinational hedge fund. Miller holds no position in stocks mentioned above.
Time Warner Cable Inc. (NYSE:TWC) has posted earnings. Revenues for the third quarter rose 25% ($792 million) over the third quarter of 2006 to $4.0 billion, and earnings were listed as $0.25 on basic and diluted earnings. First Call shows estimates at $0.27 EPS and $4.06 billion revenues.
The stock is up at the open. As of 9:45 am, it is at $27.88, a gain of 33 cents or 1.2%.
The company still reports on an OIBDA basis: Operating Income Before Depreciation and Amortization ("OIBDA") climbed 28% and operating income grew 24% over Q3 2006; OIBDA rose 12% and operating income grew 14% over Pro Forma Q3 2006.
This was a record quarterly net gain of 275,000 Digital Phone Subscribers that fueled the largest ever quarterly net increase of 220,000 Triple Play Subscribers. If you want to break it down by net additions, this is a total of revenue generating units having reached 522,000 net additions in the quarter.
Subscription revenues increased 25% ($749 million) to $3.8 billion; video revenues grew 21% ($440 million) to $2.5 billion, reflecting continued penetration of digital video services and video price increases; High-speed data revenues rose 26% ($197 million) to $942 million; Advertising revenues increased 24% ($43 million) to $221 million.
Unfortunately, these numbers are all skewed due to a large Kansas City pool of customers being transferred in the quarter.
Time Warner Inc. (NYSE: TWX) posted earnings per share of 29 cents after items, but on a normalized basis the company's earnings were 24 cents. Revenue was $11.68 billion. First Call estimates were for earnings of 24 cents on revenue of $11.36 billion.
As far as how this compares, it really seems like the results were better than expected. Adjusted Operating Income before Depreciation and Amortization climbed 15% to $3.2 billion, reflecting double-digit increases in the Cable, Filmed Entertainment and Publishing segments, as well as a gain at the Networks segment. This growth was offset partly by a decline at AOL. Operating Income was up 29% to $2.1 billion.
Time Warner continued its aggressive share buyback. As of November 6, 2007, the company has repurchased approximately 119 million shares for approximately $2.2 billion since its $5 billion program was announced on August 1. At existing prices, the company expects to complete at least half of the program by the time the time it reports its 2007 full-year and fourth-quarter results.
Soleil Securities says: "We now believe that the CEO role at TWX will change hands before year-end 2007." Soleil believes there is an upside potential to the share price in the event of a Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC) spin-off, a publishing segment sale and a spin-off and sale or IPO of AOL.
TWX is expected to announce EPS on 11/7.
TWX November option implied volatility of 31 is above its 26-week average of 25 according to Track Data, suggesting larger risk.
Daily options Update is provided by Stock Specialist Paul Foster of theflyonthewall.com.
Sometimes growing cable numbers on a raw basis just aren't enough. That was the case over the punishment seen on Comcast Corp. (NASDAQ: CMCSA) earnings. It wasn't the raw growth, and it wasn't really the earnings. It was the relative growth and the notion that CEO Brian Roberts specifically noted how new offerings were creating a challenging environment in Q4. If it is challenging then in one quarter, that won't be a one-quarter issue.
The main culprit for this "challenging environment" is the growing popularity and installs seen out of Verizon (NYSE: VZ)'s FiOS and AT&T (NYSE: T)'s uVerse digital television and home-fiber bundles. These were hard to believe in with much conviction about 12 to 24 months ago when you had gotten used to the lightning speeds of cable versus DSL.
But it turns out that in a slowing economy and with the opportunity to save cash, more customers are at least willing to entertain the notion of using the telecom again. Since AT&T and Verizon each also have stellar mobile phone coverage, and since people are actually starting to go without landline phones in the home, the telecoms might actually have a solid argument.
The Associated Press reports that BloggingStocks' parent, Time Warner (NYSE: TWX), beat Wall Street expectations by a penny a share. But its profit was still down -- 26% thanks to declining subscriber fees at AOL and lower advertising revenues at magazines like Time and Sports Illustrated.
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It's been a while since we've seen sharp gains on shares of cable companies. UBS is holding its Global Media Week and Communications Conference today in New York. Earlier today, 
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