Image via CrunchBase (UPDATED) Facebook’s lackluster reception on Wall Street continued today, as shares fell sharply below its $38 IPO price. The stock closed at $34.03, down about 11%. It was by far the most active stock on the Nasdaq Stock Market. Some 143 million shares trading hands. By comparison, the [...]
stock market | admin May 21, 2012 | 
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By Mel Daris:
Verizon (VZ), divided into the Verizon Wireless and Wireline segments, provides communication, information and entertainment products and services to consumers, businesses and government agencies worldwide. Its stock, currently trading around $41, is at its highest levels in over four years, and the company has quarterly revenue exceeding $28 million. Trading at its highest level in years, the question is where does the stock go from here? Quite simply, I believe the answer is higher. Let’s take a look at where the company stands in regard to its competition and what the future holds…
A 2D Story
Wireless communications. Wireline communications. Equipment. Entertainment. What do they add up to? Diversification. Along with being a nice little Business School term, it’s one of the two “Ds” that separate Verizon from its competitors. How people are entertained, how they connect with one another – these are constantly evolving themes in today’s world. And
By Ray Dirks:
Medgenics (MDGN) scores again. After a season of good news, the company recently told investors that in record time, the FDA approved its filing to start clinical trials using its Biopump platform technology to treat anemia in kidney dialysis patients.
As we’ve said in the past, EPODURE, one of MDGN’s three proprietary Biopumps in development, looks to eliminate frequent, costly and inconvenient injections of erythropoietin (EPO). Amgen Inc. (AMGN) has owned this space for years and medicine is ready for a change.
Our FDA, known for its sluggishness and bad management, moved quickly to allow Medgenics to commence Phase IIb trials in the US, giving us their endorsement of a valuable technology that even the agency can’t ignore. EPODURE works, and the FDA recognizes that our overburdened healthcare system can only benefit from the economics that Medgenics offers.
The study will be a multi-centered, randomized trial for further evaluating safety
By Dana Blankenhorn:
What most doctors have feared as a consequence of health care reform is happening anyway.
They are becoming employees rather than small businesses.
That’s the lesson of Davita’s (DVA) $4.42 billion purchase of Healthcare Partners, a privately held physicians group with 700 doctors in California, Nevada and Florida.
Once a physician becomes an employee, of course, their fate becomes the property of others. Healthcare Partners, which specializes in senior care, will now be linked to a global string of dialysis clinics – dialysis is a service heavily used by seniors.
But the deal will only make DVA itself more attractive as an acquisition target. My guess is the ultimate buyer will be an insurance company.
That’s because cost control results when the person holding the money owns the facilities providing the care. No matter your health care system, whether it’s public or private, you can’t have an unlimited draw from
By Dana Blankenhorn:
The most important part of Google’s (GOOG) original “don’t be evil” mantra was a desire to stay above the political fray.
But as the Internet has become increasingly vital, as it has come to define economies, it has of necessity become a political football. The ability of Internet companies to navigate these new, more treacherous political waters will define success or failure.
Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt put it well this weekend, in a graduation address at Boston University.
“You’re connected to each other in ways those who came before you could never have dreamed of. You’re using these connections to strengthen the invisible ties that hold humanity together and to deepen our understanding of the world around us.”
Of course, the headline coming out of that talk was his advice to turn the Internet off for at least an hour each day, to have a real conversation, to engage
Image via CrunchBase Facebook’s lackluster reception on Wall Street continued this morning, as shares fell below its IPO price in early morning trading. At 9:35 a.m., the stock is trading near $35, down about 8%. It’s by far the most active stock on the Nasdaq Stock Market. Some 7.2 million shares [...]
By Chris Katje:
In my last Spartan Stores (SPTN) article (After Recent Slide, Spartan Stores Shares Look Attractive); I called for the company to surpass the $0.44 analysts were expecting in the first quarter. In that same article, I called for a share price of $22 by the end of 2012 for Spartan shares. After a recent earnings beat and a new smaller store concept, I remain bullish on shares of Spartan stores.
Earnings per share for the fourth quarter were $0.46, beating the analyst’s target of $0.44, while also surpassing last year’s $0.34. Revenue for the quarter was up 7.6% to $614.8 million. Net income was reported as $10.5 million, versus last year’s $7.8 million.
For fiscal 2012, Spartan Stores reported revenue of $2.6 billion, a slight improvement on last year’s figure of $2.5 billion. The increase was due in large part of an extra reporting week during the fiscal year (53
By Galileo Russell:
Skullcandy is a leading audio brand that reflects the collision of the music, fashion and action sports lifestyles. Our brand and distinctive logo symbolizes youth and rebellion, and embodies our motto, every revolution needs a soundtrack.
Skullcandy has seen overwhelming success and growth since its inception in 2003. Skullcandy
By Galileo Russell:
Despite reporting Q1 revenue $9 million above analyst estimates, and beating EPS estimates by $0.01 per share, Skullcandy (SKUL) has fallen over 26% since its Q1 report. To add to the confusion, Q1 was actually the last quarter before Skullcandy unveiled Supreme Sound, its biggest product refresh in over a year.
Because of this extreme underpreformance in a time where the company has preformed so well, I’ve decided to debunk some of Skullcandy’s most bearish myths, and outline some of its most bullish facets.
Bears Say
It’s A Fad
I could make this bearish argument for any stock, Starbucks (SBUX), Lululemon (LULU), Under Armour (UA) or even Monster (MNST) (and ironically, all these stocks have a P/E well above 30).
But that’s beside the point; here are a couple individual things Skullcandy has done to prove it’s not on its way out.
-Social Media presence growth (Facebook fans and Twitter
By Tradevestor:
Baidu (BIDU) is perhaps the most followed Chinese stock. And given the stock’s wide following, it would be an injustice to both the company and the readers to introduce Bidu. So cutting to the chase, this article presents 4 reasons why we believe Bidu is getting into a “strong buy” zone.
Historical Valuation: Bidu is trading at its lowest earnings multiple since the 2009 crisis and is just a few points from reaching that level. The chart below shows the PE over the past 5 years. Agreed, Bidu’s growth rate is probably not going to be as high as it was say 5 years ago but it is still growing at nearly 50%, which makes its current valuation pretty attractive.
Bidu’s PEG sits at 0.58. As a comparison, the other undervalued growth stock Apple (AAPL) has a PEG of 0.52. That is not a bad number at all for a
By Paulo Santos:
Natural gas (UNG) bottomed one month ago. Stagnated production (though still up year-on-year), together with much higher demand for power generation, have meant the former fear that natural gas could fill up all available storage is receding. EIA’s weekly updates continue to confirm this bullish thesis, which I first put forward on my April 24th article, “Natural Gas In 2012: Electric Generation Switch Implications“.
So now, with natural gas up more than 40% in a single month, the time has come to ask: what obstacles does natural gas face next, in its upward motion? Two such obstacles stand out:
This article will deal with each of those obstacles, to see what they represent and at what prices they should become more evident.
The Natural Gas To Coal Switch
The main force behind natural gas new found
By Doolan Wesley:
Investing in biotech companies can be viewed as “risky business” in today’s world, with the FDA having a tight grip over the regulations needed for a product to reach the market. This year though, Discovery Laboratories Inc. (DSCO) introduced not one, but two new products to the market that could have a huge impact on healthcare.
Pulmonary surfactant is a lipoprotein that everyone has in their lungs to prevent atelectasis, or alveolar collapse. This lipoprotein usually begins to develop around 26 weeks of gestation, and continues to develop until birth. The reason why this is all relevant is because babies born prematurely, often have poorly developed pulmonary surfactant and have a syndrome known as infant respiratory distress syndrome (RDS). The treatment for RDS is surfactant replacement, but up until this year there have been no synthetic forms of surfactant on the market, only animal derived surfactants.
Preterm births have risen
As the market continues to reward companies with little to no earnings or growth, one sector that continues to get punished for producing record profits is the oil and gas services industry. RPC, Inc (RES) is a holding company whose operating units, Cudd Energy Services, Patterson Rental and Fishing Tools, Bronco Oilfield Services, and Thru Tubing Solutions are very well respected in the industry. These units continue to rack in tons of revenue despite the slowdown in dry gas. They have handled the transition from the Haynesville to the Eagle Ford and Permian Basin extremely well. This stock will likely perform well as the market realizes that concerns over hydraulic fracturing are overblown.
First and foremost, the world needs oil and natural gas. Despite dry gas prices falling off a cliff, the oil and gas services sector has been saved by the abundance of oil located in America’s soil. Halliburton
By Tom Konrad (AltEnergyStocks):
On May 9, green building firm PFB Corporation (PFBOF.PK) announced that it had signed a letter of intent with NOVA Chemicals for PFB to acquire NOVA’s Performance Styrenics business. The all share deal will give NOVA an equity stake in PFB as well as two seats on PFB’s board.
PFB’s Plasti-Fab subsidiary currently sells Expanded Polystyrene products (EPS) such as Insulated Concrete Forms and Structural Insulated Panels into the North American green building market, and as a result is a customer for the Performance Styrenics division’s EPS resins. Over the last few years, volatile materials costs have been a large source of uncertainly in PFB’s earnings, so the acquisition should lead to more predictable earnings at the company.
While the size of the equity stake has not been announced, I expect it will be significant given that two board seats come along with the stake. This boost in size should
By Dan Pritch:
The rise in gas prices has been tremendous over the past 4 years. Below is a 10 year chart of U.S. Regular Gasoline Prices documenting the rise with data sourced from the Energy Information Administration. For U.S. consumers and businesses, this isn’t good news. We are now approaching 10-year highs set in 2008. Higher gas prices mean less discretionary income for consumers and less money to invest for business and even the possibility of inflation as businesses are forced to raise prices.
(click to enlarge)
Fortunately, high gas prices also present opportunity for fuel saving technologies which means that Great Wall Builders’ (GWBU.OB) shareholders stand to benefit immensely. The company, operating as “Start Technologies Europe I.G, owns the exclusive manufacturing and distribution rights to the Start Fuel Efficiency and Emission Device (FEED), an aftermarket device for internal combustion engines that enhances performance by causing fuel to combust more efficiently and
