Analyst Upgrades

• BMO Capital upgraded Concho (CXO) to outperform from market perform and has a $73 price target on the stock. The firm cites valuation and sustainable growth for the upgrade.
• Sterne Agee upgraded City Holding (CHCO) to buy from neutral based on valuation. The firm has a $34 target on the stock.
• UBS upgraded Werner Enterprises (WERN) to neutral from sell based on valuation. The firm raised its price target to $21.50 from $21.
• Nvidia (NVDA) was upgraded to equal weight from underweight at Morgan Stanley.
• Colfax (CFX) was upgraded to neutral from underperform at BofA/Merrill.
• Camden Property (CPT) was upgraded to top pick from outperform at RBC Capital.

Continue reading Analyst Calls: CHCO, CXO, EAT, EDMC, GPC, NVDA, PJC, WERN ...

Analyst Calls: CHCO, CXO, EAT, EDMC, GPC, NVDA, PJC, WERN ... originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 13 Aug 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Here are some highlights from this past week's earnings coverage from BloggingStocks:

• Applied Materials Inc. (NASDAQ: AMAT) Q2 profits declined on a glut of flash memory chips.
• Bally Technologies Inc. (NYSE: BYI) beat Q3 expectations and offered full-year guidance.
• Barclay's (NYSE: BCS) reported a big Q1 loss on credit-related write-downs.
• Constant Contact Inc. (NASDAQ: CTCT) saw big increases in Q1 revenues and in its customer base.
• Deere & Co. (NYSE: DE) Q2 profits rose on international demand, but results just missed estimates.
• Fluor Corp.'s (NYSE: FLR) strong Q1 results are a signal for the energy sector, says Jim Cramer.
• Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE) Q1 loss widened on the housing slump, but not as much as forecast.
• IndyMac Bancorp Inc. (NYSE: IMB) narrowed its loss but predicted it wouldn't see a profit in 2008.
• LDK Solar Co. Ltd. (NYSE: LDK) Q1 earnings topped forecasts and it raised its outlook.
• MBIA Inc. (NYSE: MBI) reported a larger-than-expected Q1 loss due to write-downs.
• Mindray Medical International Ltd. (NYSE: MR) beat Q1 expectations and raised its full-year guidance.
• Nuance Communications Inc. (NASDAQ: NUAN) Q2 earnings were in line with analysts' expectations.
• ON Semiconductor Corp. (NASDAQ: ONNN) beat Q1 expectations and raised its Q2 revenue forecast.
• RealNetworks Inc. (NASDAQ: RNWK) beat Q1 estimates and announced share buybacks and a spin off.
• Salary.com Inc. (NASDAQ: SLRY) missed Q1 forecasts, leading to analysts' downgrades.
• Sykes Enterprises Inc. (NASDAQ: SYKE) beat Q1 estimates and raised its Q2 and full-year forecast.
• Syniverse Holdings Inc. (NYSE: SVR) beat Q1 expectations on strength in "messaging and mobil data."
• Toll Brothers Inc. (NYSE: TOL) warned of lower Q2 profits and more "challenging times" ahead.
• Website Pros Inc. (NASDAQ: WSPI) reported flat earnings despite soaring revenues and operating income.

Continue reading Earnings highlights: Deere, Freddie Mac, Applied Materials, Barclay's and others

Earnings highlights: Deere, Freddie Mac, Applied Materials, Barclay's and others originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sat, 17 May 2008 16:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

With the slowing economy, there's much fear that businesses will cut back on marketing dollars. Well, so far, this doesn't seem to be a problem for Constant Contact (NASDAQ: CTCT), which provides email marketing services to small businesses.

According to the company's Q1 report, revenues shot up 87% to $18.2 million and GAAP net income came to $338,000. The total customer base now stands at 185,948, up 78% over the past year. In fact, the monthly customer retention is about 97.8%. In other words, customers seem to be happy with the web service.

To capitalize on things, Constant Contact is now expanding its offerings as the company is getting traction from its survey product. There is also a new tool to integrate with Intuit (NASDAQ: INTU)'s QuickBooks.

While vigilant and cautious, Constant Contact doesn't see any problems from the macroeconomic environment. Actually, the company boosted its full-year 2008 revenue guidance to $82.5-$84.5 million from $81-$83.5 million. The adjusted EBITDA is expected to range from $3.2-$3.6 million.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements. He also operates MergerBook.com.

Constant Contact - the check's in the email originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 12 May 2008 13:14:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Email marketing can be quite effective. According to a report from the Direct Marketing Association, email marketing returned $51.58 in sales for each dollar spent. This compares to $17.07 for newspaper ads and $15.64 for direct mail.

The good news is that there are cost-effective email marketing tools, such as from Constant Contact (NASDAQ: CTCT).

But what are some useful strategies? Well, I had a chance to talk to Trynka Shineman, the senior vice president of North American marketing for VistaPrint (NASDAQ: VPRT). Let's take a look:

Getting Action: Try to cross-sell customers, such as through an order confirmation email. You can provide a special price and a link to a splash page to a relevant product offer.

"It's also important to create a sense of urgency," said Shineman. "Customers need to know not only that they are receiving something targeted to them, but a date encourages them to act quickly versus delaying the decision."

Continue reading Entrepreneur's Journal: Minting sales from your emails

Entrepreneur's Journal: Minting sales from your emails originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sat, 22 Dec 2007 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

MOST NOTEWORTHY:

• Merriman initiated Bionovo Inc (NASDAQ: BNVI), with a Buy rating, as they believe shares are undervalued given the company's development pipeline and related intellectual property.
• Constant Contact Inc (NASDAQ: CTCT) was initiated with a Market Weight rating at Thomas Weisel. The company was also initiated with a Sector Outperformer and $30 target at CIBC, as they believe the company is well-positioned in the on-demand email marketing segment.
• Citigroup initiated Senorx Inc (NASDAQ: SENO) with a Hold rating and $12 target, citing competition concerns and their belief that infrastructure investments could delay profitability.
• BWS Financial said RemoteMDx Inc (OTC: RMDX) has been able to secure contracts that should result into larger follow-on orders as the TrackerPAL starts to have a history in real life scenarios. The firm started shares off with a Buy rating and $8.75 target.

• Bear resumed coverage of China Southern Airlines Company Limited (NYSE: ZNH) with an Underperform rating and China Eastern Airlines (NYSE: CEA) with a Peer Perform rating.
• Deutsche Bank initiated Seagate Technology (NYSE: STX) and Hutchinson Technology Incorporated (NASDAQ: HTCH) with Hold ratings and a $30 target and $26 target.

Analyst initiations: BNVI, CTCT, SENO and RMDX originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 12 Nov 2007 10:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Wall Street's equity market offers a full schedule this week, with 8 IPOs and 5 Secondaries on the docket.

Those deals tentatively scheduled to price include:

IPOs:

Possible

• Merrion Pharmaceuticals (MERR), a 4M-share IPO for this pharmaceuticals company. Punk Zeigel is the lead manager. Filing range: $10.00-$12.00.

Early Week

• Liberty Acquisition (LIA), an 86.25M-share IPO for this reorganization services company. Citigoup is the lead manager.

Continue reading IPO & secondary preview -- Week of Oct. 1, 2007

IPO & secondary preview -- Week of Oct. 1, 2007 originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 02 Oct 2007 09:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading BloggingStocks Interview: On-demand goes public

BloggingStocks Interview: On-demand goes public originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 10 Jul 2007 13:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.