Hopefully we are either getting toward the beginning of the end in this bear trend. If not, we are in for a long 2008 between presidential candidates bantering caught in a weak economy and a down trending market. The daily sell-off is hard to argue against since buying only works for a short period right now. About the best thing the bulls could hang a shingle on today was an initial flat reading seen in some index after the open. That wasn't to hold. All of the same reasons that the bulls hung on to were overrun by the same arguments the bears have been using all along.
Cisco Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO) was one of the bigger losers in key technology on two different reports causing concern on Wall Street. Shares were down over 5.3% at $21.66 in today's final minutes.
QLogic Corp. (NASDAQ: QLGC) was a winner after it actually raised guidance. Shares were up over 9% today in the final minutes at $15.27.
VeriSign Inc. (NASDAQ: VRSN) was a standout winner today. Shares were raised, although there are more questions than answers outstanding on this stock now. Shares were up 2.8% at $33.77 in today's final minutes.
Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) shares were down over 2% at $24.09 despite rumors on Jerry Yang about to resign. I called the company, and it denied such rumors right on the spot.
MOST NOTEWORTHY: Steel Dynamics, Nucor, Nokia and Wachovia were today's noteworthy upgrades:
UBS upgraded Steel Dynamics (NASDAQ: STLD) and Nucor (NYSE: NUE) to Buy from Neutral and added them to their Short-Term Buy list citing oversold valuations and the belief that both will beat Q2 Street estimates and guide higher.
Dresdner Kleinwort upgraded shares of Nokia (NYSE: NOK) to Buy from Add as they believe the company's second half of the year looks strong due to new product launches.
Merrill Lynch upgraded Wachovia (NYSE: WB) to Neutral from Underperform on valuation as they believe credit headwinds are priced into the stock at current levels. Merrill also thinks WB would make a "good fit" for JP Morgan (JPM) and puts a realistic acquisition value on the company of $16-$20 per share.
OTHER UPGRADES:
Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN) was upgraded at Baird to Outperform from Neutral.
Lehman upgraded Penn Virginia (NYSE: PVG) to Overweight from Equal Weight.
UBS has upgraded Hovnanian (NYSE:HOV) to "neutral" from "sell," according toBriefing.com. The news service also reports that Oppenheimer raised its price target for Verisign (NASDAQ:VRSN) to $42.
Lehman Brothers affirmed it "overweight" rating on Bank of New York (NYSE:BK) ahead of the company's annual meeting with brokers, according to the AP.
Bessemer Venture Partners, which is the oldest VC firm in the US, has picked many winners such as Skype, VeriSign (NASDAQ: VRSN) and LinkedIn. So, what does the firm like right now? Well, one sector is on-demand business applications.
In fact, this week the firm led a $15 million investment in Intacct, which operates a web-based ERP system. In all, the firm has raised $29 million in the past nine months.
"We focus on small and mid size companies," said Marc Linden, Intacct's CFO, in an interview with me. "It's for those businesses that are graduating from Intuit's (NASDAQ: INTU) QuickBooks. And we estimate the market size at $7 billion."
No doubt, there are some tough competitors, such as NetSuite (NYSE: N). But with such a large market size, there should be room for a variety of players.
And what about the slowing economy? According to Linden, there is "no effect yet." Then again, by using an on-demand model, customers may be looking to Intacct to cut costs.
Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook (www.mergerbook.com).
VeriSign (NASDAQ: VRSN) had excellent performance in 2007. The stock ran from the low $20s to the low $40s, and now has settled in at $37.54. My 2008 price target for VeriSign is $55. It will be an interesting year for this company -- the toll booth of the internet.
I wrote about VeriSign back in late May 2007 when the tenured CEO, Stratton Sclavos, abruptly left the company. Sclavos was CEO for 11 years, having taken the company through its 1998 IPO and many, many acquisitions. Since his quick departure last May, the stock has gone up from $25 to its current price. The market has voted favorably on this CEO's departure. So what makes VeriSign a great buy for 2008?
Regular readers of BloggingStocks will find no shortage of stock picks for 2008 on our pages. Steven Halpern alone has compiled about 120 picks from the investment advisors he follows. But plenty of other bloggers have favorites for 2008 to share.
In an effort to consolidate the wealth of ideas into one handy post, here are a few of our bloggers' favorite selections for the year ahead:
Priceline (NASDAQ: PCLN) is the current favorite of Beth Gaston Moon. It's already had an amazing run in 2007, climbing from about $45 to $120 a share. Looking for a lower-priced stock? Beth recently spotlighted 10 Stocks for Under $10.
Deckers Outdoor (NASDAQ: DECK) is a stock I picked in a recent video, which Beth likes as well. I think it will continue to surprise to the upside on the strength of sales of its trendy Ugg boots. Zac Bissonnette thinks it will no doubt flame out at some point.
MOST NOTEWORTHY: Sierra Wireless, Navteq, Goldleaf Financial, Infineon and VeriSign were today's noteworthy downgrades:
Piper downgraded shares of Sierra Wireless (NASDAQ: SWIR) to Market Perform from Outperform to reflect increasing competition for the company's core businesses and longer term margin concerns. Based on comments from Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM), Piper believes the new Gobi embedded solution is gaining more traction than previously anticipated.
The firm also downgraded Navteq (NYSE: NVT) to Market Perform from Outperform as they believe the Nokia (NYSE: NOK) acquisition will close.
Credit Suisse lowered its rating on Goldleaf Financial (NASDAQ: GFSI) to Market Perform from Outperform following its weak Q3 report and guidance.
ABN Amro downgraded shares of Infineon (NYSE: IFX) to Hold from Buy as they believe the strength of the euro will hurt margins.
VeriSign (NASDAQ: VRSN) was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Hambrecht to reflect the uncertainty surrounding the company's numerous divestitures as well as the execution risk.
MOST NOTEWORTHY: Sprint Nextel, Tesoro, VeriSign, Healthcare Property and Resources Connection were today's noteworthy downgrades:
Goldman downgraded shares of Sprint Nextel Corporation (NYSE: S) to Neutral from Buy to reflect continuing turnaround delays, macro headwinds and competition.
Tesoro Corporation (NYSE: TSO) was downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Credit Suisse, citing increased concerns regarding West Coast margins.
The firm also lowered VeriSign Inc (NASDAQ: VRSN) to Neutral from Outperform, as they believe the company's reorganization could require more time than investors anticipate.
Friedman Billings downgraded Healthcare Property (NYSE: HCP) to Market Perform from Outperform on valuation. Shares were also downgraded to Neutral from Buy at UBS.
Resources Connection (NASDAQ: RECN) was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Stifel, to Market Perform from Outperform at JMP Securities and to Peer Perform from Outperform at Bear following its Q1 report.
OTHER DOWNGRADES:
Walgreen (NYSE: WAG) was downgraded to Neutral from Overweight at JMP Securities.
JP Morgan downgraded Staples Inc (NASDAQ: SPLS) to Underweight from Neutral.
VeriSign (NASDAQ: VRSN) option implied volatility flat at 36. VRSN provides intelligent infrastructure services for the internet and telecommunications networks. VRSN will report its EPS on 11/1/07 and has an analyst day on 11/14. VRSN closed at $29.80. VRSN over all option implied volatility of 36 is near its 26-week average according to Track Data, suggesting non-directional risks.
IBM (NYSE: IBM) implied volatility of 29 above 26-week average of 20. IBM closed at $109.22. IBM over all option implied volatility of 29 is above its 26-week avearge of 20 according to Track Data, suggesting larger price risks.
Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) implied volatility of 28 above 26-week average of 22. MSFT closed at $28.27. MSFT over all option implied volatility of 29 is above its 26-week average of 22 according to Track Data, suggesting larger risk.
MOST NOTEWORTHY: Micron Technology (MU), Halliburton Co (HAL), Visual Sciences (VSCN) and Shaw Group (SGR) fill today's noteworthy upgrade list:
ThinkEquity upgraded shares of Micron Technology (NYSE: MU) to Buy from Accumulate, citing strength in the PC market. The firm believes Micron is well positioned to benefit from the potential secular uptrend in the DRAM market over the next 12 months.
Credit Suisse upgraded shares of Halliburton (NYSE: HAL) to Outperform from Neutral citing solid cyclical fundamentals, which should offset overly negative perceptions.
JMP Securities upgraded Visual Sciences (NASDAQ: VSCN) to Market Perform from Underperform based on the potential acquisition.
Citigroup upgraded shares of Shaw Group (NYSE: SGR) to Buy from Hold to reflect the company's robust backlog growth and changes in management...
GE's CNBC cable business news channel and the Financial Times Group are in discussions to share resources and shore up their Web business, reported the Wall Street Journal.
VeriSign Inc (NASDAQ: VRSN), which oversees dot-com and dot-net domain names registry, has recorded an additional $160M in compensation expenses related to stock option grants made between 1998 and 2006, causing the CFO to resign, reported the Wall Street Journal.
The Financial Times (subscription required) reported that Virgin Media Inc (NASDAQ: VMED) has hired financial services company UBS AG (NYSE: UBS) yesterday to pursue strategic buyers.
Allegheny Tech's (NYSE: ATI) volatility increases on vague buyout chatter. ATI is a diversified specialty metals producer with revenues of $4.9 billion in 2006. ATI is recently up .25 to $107.80. ThyssenKrupp has been frequently mentioned as interested in specialty metal producers. ATI has market cap of $10.9 billion. ATI call option volume of 14,650 contracts compares to put volume of 3,172 contracts. ATI July & August option implied volatility of 40 is above its 26-week average of 37 according to Track Data, suggesting larger price risks.
Tesoro-(NYSE-TSO) volatility & volume higher on renewed takeover Speculation. TSO, an independent refiner and marketer of petroleum products, is recently up .88 cents to $60.27 on renewed takeover speculation. WTI Crude oil futures are down .35% to $71.94 according to Bloomberg. TSO call option volume of 6,779 contracts compares to put volume of 637 contracts. TSO July & August option implied volatility of 42 is above its 26-week average of 35 according to Track Data, suggesting larger price risks.
The controversial company VeriSign Inc. (NASDAQ: VRSN) has gone up nearly $4 since the sudden resignation of embattled CEO Stratton Sclavos this past Tuesday. I wrote earlier this week that Stratton Sclavos was indeed a polarizing figure, but had survived the Silicon Valley merry-go-round by having lasted 12 years at the helm. Some major institutional investors did not want to be involved with VeriSign's stock as long as Stratton Sclavos was the CEO.This past week has changed that thinking as the stock has lifted from $26 to $30.
As I wrote in my book Stop Losing Money Today, the most important factor in making a decision in owning a stock is the senior management. If an investor cannot get comfortable with a company's CEO, chances are they will avoid the stock. The CEO sets the tone and the vision of the company, plain and simple. The CEO selects the people to run and operate the divisions within a company. The CFO -- chief financial officer -- is entrusted with delivering the vision by the numbers and too communicate effectively with Wall Street as to the composition and direction of those numbers.
Stratton Sclavos was indeed a visionary with VeriSign. When he took over the reigns in 1995, the yet to be public company was doing about $10 million in revenues and was viewed basically as a security company. Under Stratton's watch, VeriSign has grown to a $1.6 billion revenue base company with healthy margins and a strong bottom line. So what happened?
Stratton Sclavos was an acquiring CEO. He believed that whenever something could not be developed internally in a timely fashion -- go out and buy it. Buy it he did. Stratton kept investment bankers busy and always searching for the next property to put into VeriSign's portfolio. Several missteps happened along the way, as well as some good, solid acquisitions. Stratton annoyed some investors as they were concerned about VeriSign deviating away from its core competencies.
Stratton Sclavos, Chairman and CEO of VeriSign Inc. (NASDAQ: VRSN) today said he was leaving after 12 years, which for a Silicon Valley-based technology company is the equivalent of a lifetime. VeriSign is trading up a bit following the news. I have known Stratton these past 12 years, having traveled with him on several occasions to visit institutional investors. He is a fine gentleman, and a friend who was as dedicated to his company as any CEO I have ever known and I have known more than 300 CEOs.
VeriSign is the utility of the internet. All .com and .net addresses are registered through VeriSign and all communications ending in .com and .net must pass through the VeriSign data center. VeriSign is also the leader in web site digital certificates. These certificates allow the customer's servers to be secured so that all transaction and sensitive information are encrypted. Key ecommerce vendors from Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) to large banks use Verisign's web site digital certificates, which have never been hacked.
The beauty of VeriSign's financial model is that it has high margin products that renewed on an annual basis. The company is emerging as a cash flow juggernaut. It's also the leader in cell-phone communications as the "hand-off" expert from one network to another.
Sclavos is a skilled operator and ably led the company through both the boom and the bust times. He was there for VeriSign's initial public offering in 1996 and kept the investment bankers busy these past 12 years with acquisitions including the Network Solutions purchase in 1999 that secured VeriSign's position as the true utility of the internet.
VeriSign stock is interesting at $27.50. I estimate it will earn $1.10 this year growing to $1.35-1.40 next year. With operating margins headed up to the 22-25% range, VeriSign may look quite tempting for a private equity transaction. With the current market capitalization at $6.5 billion and revenues approaching $1.75 billion, the guns of private equity may be pointing VeriSign's way.
VeriSign Corp. (NASDAQ: VRSN) has been named one of America's most admired companies by Fortune magazine for 2007. It would stand to make sense as the CEO, Stratton Sclavos has been in the role for the past 11 years. Any tenure beyond five years for a Silicon Valley technology company is actually quite admirable. Stratton has both a corporate conscience as he attempts to maximize VeriSign's revenues and earnings, and a strong social conscience as well. Having gotten to know him pretty well these past ten years, his goals are to make VeriSign a major, significant company, and to ensure that the internet is available to all, whether they can pay or not.
VeriSign is the toll booth, the registry, for all .com and .net domain names regardless of where they are purchased. The company has planned for extensive expansion beyond just the traditional .com and .net usage. Currently there are 65 million .com and .net domain names and the growth rate is nearly 30%.
VRSN also ensures encrypted communications for ecommerce transactions and information through the issuance of web site digital certificates. It's a recurring revenue model as is .com and .net. VeriSign earns $6 per name, per year. The Department of Commerce has granted VRSN the exclusive registry privileges through 2012, with presumptive renewal rights thereafter. The website digital certificates run about $699 per server, per year.
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Regular readers of BloggingStocks will find no shortage of stock picks for 2008 on our pages. Steven Halpern alone has compiled about 
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