It's the sellers, not the buyers, that drive Avon's (AVP) stock value. What differentiates Avon from other beauty and personal care players such as L'Oreal (LRLCY), Procter & Gamble (PG), Estee Lauder (EL) and Unilever (UL) is not what it sells but how it sells. Avon is the largest direct selling organization in the world, with over 6.2 million sales representative generating annual revenues of nearly $11 billion in 2010.

Avon sells everything from shower-gels to watches to nutritional supplements. While others sell their products through third party establishments like drugstores or mass volume retailers, Avon sells its products directly to the final consumer. Avon's sales representatives are independent contractors that pitch Avon's products to consumers and, upon receiving an order, buy the product from Avon at a discount and earn the difference.

Avon (AVP) is one of the leading players in the beauty and personal care industry and competes with companies like Procter & Gamble (PG), L'Oreal, Estee Lauder (EL) and Revlon (REV). Along with skin creams, shower gels, fragrances and other beauty products, Avon also makes fashion accessories like watches and apparels, and home products like decorative items, house wares and nutritional supplements. What differentiates Avon from its competitors rest is the way it sells its products. Avon is the largest direct selling organization in the world and has an active sales force of over 6.2 million sales representatives across the globe who sell directly to the consumers.

Cosmetics giant Avon Products (AVP) unveiled its fourth-quarter earnings this morning, and the results fell short of Wall Street's expectations. AVP's quarterly profit slipped 15% to $229.5 million, or 53 cents per share. Excluding restructuring expenses, earnings from continuing operations declined to 59 cents per share from 68 cents in the year-ago quarter. Revenue rose 1.2% to $3.18 billion.

By contrast, analysts were looking for a profit of 67 cents per share on revenue of $3.28 billion. AVP's fourth-quarter performance was negatively impacted by currency fluctuations, as well as higher product costs.

Option traders appear to be setting up for a bullish move on CA Technologies (CA). Traders plowed into 13,932 new call option contracts -- 19.32 times the average volume -- on the stock on Monday. And we know that traders were eager to get into this trade because 98% of the trades came in on the ask price.

CA recently bounced off of support at $18 and is nearing resistance at $20.50. The stock closed Monday at $20.17, up 6.69% during the past month.

Tupperware (TUP) issued Q4 numbers after the bell on Monday. Sales were higher by 10% once benefits from currency exchange were eliminated. Adjusted earnings per share increased 16% to $1.22. According to Earnings.com, net income came in 18 cents better than the average estimate.

Bravo! Tupperware, which counts Newell Rubbermaid (NWL) and Avon Products (AVP) as colleagues, is also doing well with cash flow. In fact, you'll notice from the release that management is increasing its stock buyback by $200 million.

Estee Lauder (EL) closed at $49.76. EL is expected to report Q2 EPS on January 28th. February option implied volatility is at 31, April is 29; near its 26-week average of 31, according to Track Data, suggesting non-directional price movement.

Avon Products (AVP) closed at $32.26. AVP February put option implied volatility is at 35, April puts are at 32, versus its 26-week average of 32, according to Track Data, suggesting non-directional price movement.

Elizabeth Arden (RDEN) closed at $16.27. RDEN is expected to report Q2 EPS in early February. February and June option implied volatility of 59 is below its 26-week average of 72, according to Track Data, suggesting decreasing price movement.

Option Update is provided by Stock Specialist Paul Foster of theflyonthewall.com.

"Although I'm very leery of the market now, I'll continue to buy gradually when specific stocks are attractive," says Jack Adamo. In Insiders Plus, he looks to a new idea: Avon Products (NYSE: AVP).

"Avon's stock got whacked when fellow paint sellers, Estee Lauder and Elizabeth Arden, guided earnings lower, and analysts lowered earnings expectations for Avon to about $1.90 for 2009.

"They're probably still too optimistic, but I'm buying the stock anyway. We owned Avon for almost 3 years, and sold it for $43.47 in September for a 69% profit.

Analyst upgrades:

• Baird upgraded Regal-Beloit (NYSE: RBC) to Outperform from Neutral based on valuation and growth expectations.
• Black & Decker (NYSE: BDK) and Lennar (NYSE: LEN) were upgraded to Buy from Neutral at UBS based on valuation.
• Kroger (NYSE: KR) and Public Storage (NYSE: PSA) were added to Goldman's Conviction Buy List.
• CIBC upgraded Biovail (NYSE: BVF) to Sector Performer from Sector Underperformer.
• Abercrombie & Fitch (NYSE: ANF) was raised to Neutral from Underperform at Cowen.

• Merrill downgraded Campbell Soup (NYSE: CPB) to Neutral from Buy and expects marketing and promotional spending to limit earnings growth in 2009 and 2010. The firm lowered their target to $35 from $42.
• Mechel Steel (NYSE: MTL) was cut to Underweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley to reflect declining coal demand.
  
• Friedman Billings downgraded shares of Legg Mason (NYSE: LM) to Underperform from Market Perform on liquidity concerns given the Legg Mason's leveraged balance sheet and falling EBITDA. The firm lowered their target to $7 from $11.

In a conversation with an attorney friend of mine, who happens to be a woman, she asked for some general financial guidance. During the course of the conversation it occurred to me that women need to save more than men. There are many reasons for this, here are a few:

The first and most obvious reason women need to save more than men is that they live longer -- often without the support of a significant other. Living longer and living alone cost more money.

Second of all, women still do not have complete earnings parity with men. Some of this has to do with job type and some with history. But nevertheless, we are not there yet. If there is a 15% disparity, then a woman is starting at a disadvantage whether saving for her retirement in the future or for buying a gallon of gas today. This can only be made up by saving more and investing more. This is a worthy goal except that with less resources the difficulty is exacerbated.

"Beauty is as beauty does, the saying goes, and Avon Products Inc. (NYSE: AVP) has delivered a beautiful earnings report," says Jack Adamo in his industry-leading Insiders Plus. Here's his latest.

"Despite a 14% increase in advertising (or perhaps, because of it) the company delivered EPS up 26%. In North America, the only underperforming region, revenues continued their slow downward slide. But active representatives increased for the first time in ages, which may brighten the future on the company's home turf.

"International sales continued to soar. Latin America was 19% higher in local currencies, and 32% higher after translation into the American Peso, also known as the U.S. Dollar. In Central & Eastern Europe, first-quarter revenue rose 17% (6% in local currency). Revenue in China grew 29% (19% local). Only Japan dragged things down a bit with its 2% gain.

Avon (NYSE: AVP) delivered not a bag of cosmetics to Wall Street, but a batch of growing earnings. Total revenues for the first quarter were up beautifully, rising 14% to $2.5 billion. Earnings per diluted share likewise did the double-digit-increase dance, rocketing 26% to $0.43.

Now, I would have liked the report a lot more if the company had indicated in its cash flow statement that everything was positive -- unfortunately, that was not to be, as operational cash flow was, in fact, negative. Avon needed to use $41 million for its operating activities during the quarter. Well, one thing I can say is that it's a lot less than the cash needed to fund last year's operations -- Avon burned through over $160 million in the comparable period. A check of the latest 10K shows that, while operational cash flow has been decreasing over the last few years, it has remained positive, so since this is the first quarter of the new fiscal year, we can wait to see how cash flow shapes up as the quarters go by.

Avon competes with companies like Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG), Revlon (NYSE: REV) and Estee Lauder (NYSE: EL). As I've stated in the past, Procter & Gamble is more my kind of consumer-products business, but I'll give Avon its due since it does have a good product portfolio backing its brand and a devoted base of users. The stock is not too far off from its 52-week high as of this writing, and so long as it can keep sales growing and fight inflationary pressures, it should be a decent long-term bet.

Disclosure: I don't own shares in any of the companies mentioned; positions can change at any time.