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Earnings highlights: Abercrombie, Blockbuster, Disney, Macy's, Walmart ...

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

  • Abercrombie & Fitch Co. (ANF) lower Q3 results still topped expectations and sent shares higher.
  • Applied Materials Inc. (AMAT) posted much better-than-expected Q4 earnings, the first profit in a year.
  • AstraZeneca (AZN) received an analyst's downgrade due to concerns over its earnings prospects.
  • Blackstone Group (BX) received an analyst's upgrade following the company's Q3 results.
  • Blockbuster Inc. (BBI) widened its net loss in Q3 and revenue and same-stores sales declined.
  • Clean Energy Fuels Corp. (CLNE) shares declined after its Q3 numbers fell short of expectations.
  • Consolidated Water Co. Inc. (CWCO) earnings prospects for 2010 earned it an analyst upgrade.

Continue reading Earnings highlights: Abercrombie, Blockbuster, Disney, Macy's, Walmart ...

Toll Brothers (TOL) announces positive preliminary Q4 results

TOL logoToll Brothers (TOL - option chain) shares are rising today after the company announced preliminary Q4 results last night. TOL said that its fourth-quarter homebuilding revenue dropped 30 percent but its fourth quarter net signed contracts rose 42 percent, well above analysts' forecasts. TOL is expected to report full Q4 earnings on December 3 before the market opens. If you think that the stock 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 TOL.

TOL opened this morning at $20.14. So far today the stock has hit a low of $20.00 and a high of $21.47. As of 11:40, TOL is trading at $21.13 up $2.74 (14.9%). The chart for TOL looks bullish and S&P gives TOL a positive 5 STARS (out of 5) strong buy ranking.

Continue reading Toll Brothers (TOL) announces positive preliminary Q4 results

Cramer on BloggingStocks: China's industrial focus helps lots of U.S. names

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says at least one country is getting it right when it comes to economic stimulus.

How in the heck can you get 16% industrial growth and lower-than-expected consumer price inflation? How is that possible? Yet that's what we saw from China last night, and that's a tonic to pretty much everyone who is waiting for our own stimulus to kick in.

And we need it.

On Monday, Fluor (FLR) (Cramer's Take), the giant construction company, when asked if it could quantify the value of stimulus dollars currently in backlog, said "Really, the only stimulus funding we have seen directly has been the award that we got at Savannah River for some nuclear soil remediation. And, it was, I would say, we're less than $0.5 billion."

Continue reading Cramer on BloggingStocks: China's industrial focus helps lots of U.S. names

Cramer on BloggingStocks: Don't believe the latest doomsayer's housing hype

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer does not agree with one group's idea the housing market will be hit by a glut of foreclosed homes.

Until last night, when I thought of "Amherst" I thought of a school that my eldest daughter debated applying to. Not anymore. Nope. Now there's a new Amherst in town -- Amherst Securities. Last night this firm, which trades mortgage-backed securities, became the new expert on housing when it issued a report saying that we were going to have another leg down because the market is about to get hit by 7 million foreclosed homes.

Downbeat. Horrible. Sell the homebuilders. Sell the banks. Huge wave of foreclosures coming.

Yeah.

Got it.

Continue reading Cramer on BloggingStocks: Don't believe the latest doomsayer's housing hype

Cramer on BloggingStocks: Missing the big picture

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says don't heed the pundits -- allow yourself to believe things are improving.

Skeptical, or impossible? That's how I am posing the dilemma of the "pull through" argument whether it involves Ford (NYSE: F) (Cramer's Take) and "Cash for Clunkers" or Hovnanian (NYSE: HOV) (Cramer's Take), Lennar (NYSE: LEN) (Cramer's Take), Toll (NYSE: TOL) (Cramer's Take), KB Home (NYSE: KBH) and Pulte (NYSE: PHM) (Cramer's Take) and the $8,000 tax credit.

Right now any time there is a stimulus program of any sort, the pundits/media/money managers all decide the most important single issue isn't what it will do to the numbers, or whether it will work at all, but what will it do to the "pull through." How much of future sales will it "steal"?

Continue reading Cramer on BloggingStocks: Missing the big picture

Cramer on BloggingStocks: Fundamental distortion

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says the action that is linked to the futures markets, such as oil, is distorting rational analysis.

Maybe one day we can escape the commodity linkage and begin to trade on the fundamentals again, something that seems more distant now than any time I can recall. We are totally marching to gold, to oil, to copper, and not the fundamentals.

Throughout the era in which China has become a superpower and hedge funds have become the super arbiters or what goes up or down, we have been stuck with this fairly bogus linkage that corrupts trading and makes a mockery out of some of the most important financial analysis out there, the actual attempts to discover what's really happening at companies.

Continue reading Cramer on BloggingStocks: Fundamental distortion

Earnings highlights: Burger King, Dell, Dollar Tree, J. Crew, Staples, Toll Bros. ...

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

Continue reading Earnings highlights: Burger King, Dell, Dollar Tree, J. Crew, Staples, Toll Bros. ...

Toll Brothers shares rise as overall market slips

Shares in Toll Brothers (NYSE: TOL) struggled to hold onto ground gained early in the trading session, a day after the luxury home-builder reported a much larger quarterly loss. Shares rallied shortly after the morning bell on comments from Toll on Thursday that it sees the U.S. housing market beginning to stabilize.

Trading volume hit a peak just before 10 a.m. ET when 95,000 shares traded hands. But a new survey showing a decline in consumer confidence helped push trading volume lower and the stock dipped into negative territory before resuming positive gains.

Continue reading Toll Brothers shares rise as overall market slips

Will housing stocks drop this fall?

If you listen to the majority of economists out there, they will tell you that the collapse of the housing market was one of the major factors that pushed us into the current recession. They will also tell you that a recovery in the housing market will be necessary if we are to ever pull out of this recession.

So it's no surprise that, with all of that in mind, economists and investors have been excited to see improvements in the housing market this summer.

For instance, the New Home Sales number released on Wednesday by the Census Bureau showed that sales rose more than expected in July -- to 433,000.

Continue reading Will housing stocks drop this fall?

Before the bell: Investor caution reigns

The recent strong gains in stock prices appear to have many investors cautious as August winds down. With stock indexes at the highest points all year, any gains may be modest on Wall Street today.

Stocks rose slightly yesterday on news that oil inventories last week were higher than anticipated, leading to speculation that an economic recovery, if on its way, may be slow and anemic.

Stocks to watch include luxury home-builder Toll Brothers (NYSE: TOL), which reported Thursday morning a much larger quarterly loss of $472.3 million, or $2.93 a share, compared to a loss of $29.3 million, or 18 cents a share, a year ago. Included in the loss was a $439.4 million non-cash deferred tax allowance and write-downs totaling $115 million in the quarter. Last year's results included write-downs of $139.4 million. New home buyers wait-and-see attitudes took a toll on the company's revenues, which fell 42% to $461.3 million. But the company said it sees signs of stabilization in the housing market. The company is scheduled to discuss its fiscal third-quarter results today in a conference call at 2 p.m. ET.

Continue reading Before the bell: Investor caution reigns

Toll Brothers earnings preview: A big Q3 loss expected

Luxury homebuilder Toll Brothers Inc. (NYSE: TOL) is scheduled to discuss its fiscal third-quarter 2009 results tomorrow in a conference call at 2:00 PM ET hosted by CEO Robert I. Toll. You can catch the live webcast of the call on the company's website.

Recent good news about the housing sector ought to be good news for homebuilders such as Toll Brothers. Yet, for the three months that ended July 31, analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters expect the Pennsylvania-based company to report that its net loss widened to $1.74 per share from $0.18 per share a year ago. That largely due to the fact that revenue for the quarter is expected to have fallen 42.3% to $460.2 million, because of of falling home prices, tighter mortgage lending standards, and rising unemployment.

Continue reading Toll Brothers earnings preview: A big Q3 loss expected

Analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations: AMD, AXP, ACI, NOK, NRP, SYK, WPCS

Analyst upgrades:

  • Citigroup upgraded Advanced Micro (NYSE: AMD) to Buy from Hold and raised its target to $5.50 from $4.25 citing valuation and expectations for the company's competitive position and gross margins to improve.
  • Barclays upgraded American Express (NYSE: AXP) to Overweight from Equal Weight citing long-term earnings growth as the company benefits from declining charge-offs and credit costs. The firm has a $38 target on the stock.
  • JPMorgan upgraded Arch Coal (NYSE: ACI) to Overweight from Neutral and raised its target to $22 from $19 citing the FTC approval for the acquisition of Jacobs Ranch mine and valuation.
  • Bebe Stores (NASDAQ: BEBE) was upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Stephens.
  • Cheesecake Factory (NASDAQ: CAKE) was upgraded to Neutral from Underweight at Piper Jaffray.
  • Ashland (NYSE: ASH) was upgraded to Buy from Hold at KeyBanc.

Continue reading Analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations: AMD, AXP, ACI, NOK, NRP, SYK, WPCS

Comfort Zone Investing: Starting over

Most investors got slammed last year, down 50% or more in their investments. Didn't matter if they owned stocks or real estate, they got hammered. Many have to start over. And if they're near retirement, it's scary. Years of patient investing wiped out, gains that were made over a long time disappeared frighteningly fast.

But now it's time to begin fresh, to rebuild. What's the safest way to regain some or all of the losses without suffering another wipeout?

Continue reading Comfort Zone Investing: Starting over

Closing Bell: FOMC keeps the euphoria going (C, JASO, YRCW, NOK, TOL)

Call today a Bernanke-induced euphoria that rates will stay very low, even if the Fed has still hinted at an exit of the free and endless money supply. The trade deficit was narrower than expected and oddly enough, we are running a trade surplus if you don't consider China and foreign energy. Even the yield on the 10-Year auction came in at lower levels. Here were today's unofficial closing bell levels:

Dow 9,361.61 +120.16 (1.30%)
S&P 500 1,005.81 +11.46 (1.15%)
Nasdaq 1,998.72 +28.99 (1.47%)

Top Analyst Calls

Continue reading Closing Bell: FOMC keeps the euphoria going (C, JASO, YRCW, NOK, TOL)

Cramer on BloggingStocks: This bull is just biding his time

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says he believes we have a bit further to fall, but he'll be buying again soon after.

In a week we've gone from, "Prove it, bears -- prove how crummy it really is," to, "Bulls, give me a break -- don't bother taking the futures up, you're finished and you know it."

What caused the transformation? I think price. The realization that the moves have been so breathtaking that it converted bulls to bears literally overnight. I don't think this is the "same old bear" that is growling.

Continue reading Cramer on BloggingStocks: This bull is just biding his time

Next Page »

Symbol Lookup
IndexesChangePrice
DJIA-14.2810,318.16
NASDAQ-10.782,146.04
S&P 500-3.521,091.38

Last updated: November 21, 2009: 12:22 AM

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