By George Liu:
The Niche
Comcast Corporation (CMCSA) is a $74 billion media conglomerate operating in the Services sector that provides entertainment, information, and communications products and services in the United States and internationally. It operates everything from television channels such as USA and CNBC to theme parks such as Universal Studios Hollywood. Comcast is the nation’s biggest cable-TV operator; One of its biggest acquisitions was the January 2011 purchase of NBCUniversal from GE (GE) for $27.3 billion. This move continues to prove to have been a successful venture; S&P Capital IQ recently noted that the $27.3 billion paid for NBCUniversal “seems like an even more attractive valuation” now.
Overview
Comcast Corporation has been in the headlines recently, soaring atop of a 14.5% YTD gain in its stock price. Hulu, which it co-owns along with The Walt Disney Company (DIS) and News Corporation (NWS), recently reported a 60% increase in revenues and announced
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By Stock Croc:
Avon Products (AVP) has been troubled by regulatory problems since 2008. At that time, the company began an investigation into bribery rumors in connection with its operations in China. Those investigations were related to expenses for travel and entertainment, and it wasn’t long before the net widened to other countries. Many have criticized the company for being slow and cumbersome in its approach to investigating the wrongdoings, and lax in its punishment of employees responsible.
Shares took a 50% hit when the problems first came to light, and since then have drifted lower. The last big leg of the decline occurred in October/ November of last year, when the SEC announced it was to probe Avon’s contact with analysts in 2010 and 2011. From $24 before this announcement, the stock fell to a low of $16.09 in mid November.
With the latest announcements by the company, and possibly prompted by
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By Dutch Trader:
Wrap-Up Results
Starbucks Corp. (SBUX) fiscal first-quarter revenue advanced 16% to $3.44 bln, higher than consensus of 3.29 bln. Net income in the period ended 1 January rose 10% to $382 mln, or $0.50 a share, slightly ahead of market expectations of $0.49 a share. Sales at stores open at least 13 months rose 9% globally in the quarter, above consensus of a gain of 7.6%.
Starbucks narrowed its forecast for profit to a range of $1.78 to $1.82 a share for fiscal 2012, compared with a previous projection of $1.75 to $1.82, while consensus is at $1.83.
Starbucks operating margin narrowed to 16.2% in the first quarter from 17% a year earlier because of higher commodity costs. Hence, Starbucks has been forced to raise menu prices to help recoup higher raw-ingredient costs. However, it have locked in its coffee costs for 2012 and for half of 2013, therefore cost
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By BK) has quietly assumed the role on of the nation’s largest asset custodians, with $250 billion in assets held at the boutique bank. With interest rates at practically zero, the smallest uptick in rates will have exponentially positive implications on the company’s net income.
Over the past 10 years, Bank of New York (aka BoNY) has been quite disciplined in retaining profits and reinvesting capital into additional growth. Based on the company’s current discounted cash flow model, this banking stock is one of the many banking stocks that are artificially underpriced due to market inefficiencies. In 2001, the company had total stockholder equity of $6.32 billion.
By 2010, that number had mushroomed to $32.35 billion and continues to increase, especially after the collapse of the nation’s top investment banks in 2008 and 2009. BoNY proved to be one of the most solid and fundamentally sound
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Most readers think the stocks are far from nosebleed territory, but selectivity is essential.
By Takeover Analyst:
In an earlier article here, I promoted Suncor Energy and since then the stock has hit my price target – rising by 31.9%, beating the Dow Jones by 2,350 basis points. The Street is currently bullish on Talisman (TLM), Suncor (SU), and Chevron (CVX), but prefers Talisman the least due to operational challenges and failed execution. Based on my multiples analysis and DCF model, I find meaningful upside for both firms especially in the event of a recovery. When factoring in the potential value creation from a strategic initiative for Talisman, I prefer the stock over Suncor
From a multiples perspective, Chevron is the cheapest of these three. It trades at a respective 7.9x and 7.8x past and forward earnings. Suncor and Talisman trade at a respective 10.8x and 12.6x forward earnings. In addition to being the most undervalued, Chevron also has the largest dividend yield at 3.1%. Even still,
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By Takeover Analyst:
With employment figures improving, investors are naturally looking to Walmart (WMT) as a way to benefit from increased consumer expenditures. What investors fail to note, however, is that Walmart will struggle to be an outperforming beneficiary of a macro recovery due to its low beta of 0.4. With that said, the company is a strong defensive play against the prospects of a double dip. In light of Costco’s (COST) frightening downside, I expect retail investors to shift over to stronger brands like Target (TGT) and Walmart.
From a multiples perspective, Target is the cheapest of the three. It trades at 12.2x past and forward earnings while Walmart and Costco trade at a respective 14x and 25.7x past earnings. Walmart has the highest dividend yield by 2.4% with Target just behind.
At the third quarter earnings call, Walmart’s CEO, Mike Duke, noted three key financial highlights and strong cash flow generation:
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By Jason Merriam:
We were not surprised to see Green Mountain Coffee (GMCR) execute a turnaround in its fiscal 2012 Q1 following its disastrous Q4 2011 results.
In the quarter ending Dec. 24th, 2011, GMCR reported a 57% increase in EPS (Q-to-Q) on a 62% rise in sales (Q-to-Q). Not too shabby. More remarkable, it would seem, the company was able to achieve the sales spike on a very modest 10% decline in inventory!
If you do the math, almost $66 million of inventory was sufficient enough to generate sales growth of more than $400 million in fiscal Q1 2012 compared to Q4 2011.
Granted, inventory as a percentage of sales in the latest period returned to a normalized 52% (60% is average for the seven prior quarters) compared to the 94.4% of sales seen in Q4. However, it is the first quarterly period of the previous seven where the company reported both
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Research and Markets has announced the addition of the “Electronic Access Control Systems – Global Strategic Business Report” report to their offering.
Catch up on Jim Cramer’s thinking on the hottest topics of the past week.
Stocks posted healthy gains this week, but some sectors outperformed the rest.
Money Talks: January job report, S&P gain buoy expectations the recovery is entrenched
This last week has been stellar for the markets and the overall economy. The Dow reached its highest point since 2008, the NASDAQ is at levels not seen since 2000 and the S&P jumped 2.1%. The primary catalyst …
Investing, Long Term Investment, stock market | admin February 5, 2012 | 
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