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Ten Valentine's Day Stocks to Hate

10 Valentine's Day stocks to hateNot all companies in these love-struck industries are good buys. Here are 10 stocks to break up with this Valentine's Day.

  • 1-800-Flowers (FLWS): A good gift, but a poorly run company that has posted a loss for three of the past four quarters.
  • Hershey (HSY): Missing out on the Cadbury merger was not so sweet for Hershey.
  • Cardiac Sciences (CSCX): It's hard to have a heart for a company that fails seven out of my eight fundamental screens.

Continue reading Ten Valentine's Day Stocks to Hate

Analyst initiations: AA, ATI, CRM, LAMR and RIGL

MOST NOTEWORTHY: The Metals and Mining sector, Lamar Advertising and Rigel Pharmaceuticals were today's noteworthy initiations:
  • Banc of America initiated the Metals and Mining sector with an Equal Weight rating and believes investors should take a selective approach to stocks in the group. The firm initiated Alcoa (NYSE: AA) and RTI International Metals (NYSE: RTI) with Buy ratings and a $44 target and $41 target, and started Allegheny Tech (NYSE: ATI), Century Aluminum (NASDAQ: CENX) and Titanium Metals (NYSE: TIE) with Neutral ratings and a $64 target, $58 target and $12 target, respectively.
  • Lamar Advertising (NASDAQ: LAMR) was initiated at Caris with an Above Average rating and $40 target. Caris is positive on the company's North American focus and exposure to the aggressive deployment of digital boards.
  • Stanford believes Rigel Pharma's (NASDAQ: RIGL) lead drug R788 has the potential to be the first oral drug for rheumatoid arthritis and expects clinical news flow and partnerships to serve as catalysts. Shares were initiated with a Buy rating and $30 target.
OTHER INITIATIONS:
  • Thomas Weisel assumed Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM) with an Overweight rating and $90 target.
  • International Flavors (NYSE: IFF) was initiated at Lehman with an Underweight rating.
  • JP Morgan started Ares Capital (NASDAQ: ARCC) with an Underweight rating.

Titanium Metals: Look past last quarter and focus on the future

Titanium Metals(NYSE:TIE), reported disappointing earnings last week and as a result, the stock got slammed. The miss was largely attributed to inventory issues in the aerospace supply chain. For those not familiar, the company produces titanium melted and mill products for commercial aerospace, military, industrial, and other applications worldwide.

Many will say that this stock is priced for perfection and it's had such a monstrous run, that it will be impossible to push higher. There is no question that early investors made a mint. Since August '04 the stock has returned over 1,100%. That being said, the stock is off 25% over the last 6 months. Fundamentals in the aerospace industry look good. The company said that the delay of the initial deliveries of the Boeing (NYSE:BA)787 commercial aircraft shouldn't effect their outlook. Led by continuous demand from emerging markets, the company should be set for continued strong growth, and I expect a pick-up by the US carriers sometime in late '08. This should be more than enough to keep their stock price flying high.

With the large diversified metals companies looking at acquisitions, it wouldn't be a surprise if Titanium's name came into play.

With the recent weakness, a strong metal like Titanium is what's needed to strengthen your portfolio.

Disclosure: Author holds no position in any stock mentioned as of 11/6/07.

Aaron Katsman is the lead Portfolio Manager and Managing Director of America Israel Investment Associates, LLC. and Senior Editor of IsraelNewsletter.com.

Titanium Metals (TIE) to be added to S&P 500

TIE logoTitanium Metals Corp. (NYSE: TIE) shares are jumping today after Standard & Poor's announced that the stock will be added to the S&P 500, replacing Bausch & Lomb (NYSE: BOL). When stocks are added to these major indices, they often find a natural floor for a while due to the increased demand for that security by mutual funds and the like. If you think that the company won't fall by too much in the coming months, then now could be a good time to look at a bullish hedged trade on TIE.

After hitting a one-year high of $39.80 in May, the stock slipped to a 52-week low of $25.75 in August. TIE opened this morning at $33.28. So far today the stock has hit a low of $32.56 and a high of $33.34. As of 11:10, TIE is trading at $32.71, up 99 cents(3.1%). The chart for TIE looks bullish with slight deterioration.

For a bullish hedged play on this stock, I would consider a January bull-put credit spread below the $25 range. A bull-put credit spread is an options position that combines the purchase and sale of put 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 a 5.3% return in just 3 months as long as TIE is above $25 at January expiration. Titanium Metals would have to fall by more than 23% before we would start to lose money. Learn more about this type of trade here.

TIE hasn't been below $25 at all in the last year and has shown support recently above $31. This trade could be risky if the demand for titanium slows, but this position could be protected by the increased demand for the stock, as well as the current boom in the airplane manufacturing industry, which is a major buyer of titanium.

Brent Archer is an options analyst and writer at Investors Observer.


Analyst upgrades 6-14-07: EXPE, KSS, ORCL, SHOO and THI

MOST NOTEWORTHY: Steven Madden, Ltd (SHOO), Expedia, Inc (EXPE), Oracle Corp (ORCL) and Tim Horton's Inc (THI) round up today's noteworthy upgrade list:
  • Steve Madden, Ltd (NASDAQ: SHOO) was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Nollenberger as they believe Madden is well positioned going into the back half of 2007 with clean inventories and focused products.
  • Matrix believes increasing marketing efforts and European growth are contributing to significant improvement in fundamental trends for Expedia Inc (NASDAQ: EXPE), and upgraded shares to Hold from Sell.
  • Pacific Crest upgraded shares of Oracle Corp (NASDAQ: ORCL) to Outperform from Sector Perform to reflect improved channel checks and the probability of continued success.
  • CIBC upgraded Tim Horton's (NYSE: THI) to Sector Outperformer from Sector Performer based on valuation...
OTHER UPGRADES:
  • Bear Stearns upgraded Illumina, Inc (NASDAQ: ILMN) to Outperform from Peer Perform.
  • Buckingham raised Kohl's Corp (NYSE: KSS) to Strong Buy from Neutral.
Analyst summaries provided by TheFlyOnTheWall.com (subscription required).

Symbol Lookup
IndexesChangePrice
DJIA-89.2312,801.23
NASDAQ-23.352,903.88
S&P 500-9.311,342.64

Last updated: February 10, 2012: 09:47 PM

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