Out Fox The $treet

Very interesting that Delta (DAL) is going forward with buying a refinery in PA. The refinery is located on the Delaware River in Trainer, PA and has a crude oil processing capacity of 185K barrels per day of light, low-sulfur crude oil. The benefit is that the refinery will provide jet fuel reaching Delta's operations throughout the NorthEast, including its hubs at LaGuardia and JFK. That is at least the theory. What could go wrong? How much do you want to bet that in 2-3 years, Delta will be paying more for jet fuel than the average airline? The concept sounds great. One of the highest expenses for airlines is jet fuel and by purchasing a refinery a airline can provide itself with stable supplies. Thats the only hitch, airlines don't have issues with supplies, bur rather costs and jet fuel costs are based on crude oil. Something that a refinery won't actually control. The part that does make sense is that this was one of the refineries being shutdown and by reop...

Ameriprise Financial (AMP) has one of the juiciest yields in the markets these days, but most investors don't even know it. How could a company with a nearly $12B market cap have a large yield without the market realizing it? Maybe it goes back to Ameriprise Financial splitting from American Express (AXP) several years ago. Combine the split with the financial crisis and maybe most investors don't know or trust what appears to be a new name in the financial world. After all, American Express has much lower yields and forecasted growth rates, so investors appear to trust the old parent more. The other culprit is that investors remain completely focused on the dividend yield while ignoring the buyback yield or even more importantly, the earnings yield. Read the full article at Seeking Alpha. Disclosure: No position, but might initiate a position in AMP this week. Please read the disclaimer page for more details. 

Quick name the retail brand that had the fastest growth rate in March? Bet not many people come up with kate spade. For March, kate had a 73% comp growth rate. Now don't officially quote the fastest part since I don't have access to any database of all brands around the world to confirm. Though seriously doubt that any major brand with over $50M in quarterly sales is growing that fast. The growth rate of kate spade is what makes the debate about the value of Liz Claiborne (LIZ) such a heated conversation. Too many investors look at the total numbers for the company reported this morning and it doesn't really impress. Technically Liz reported no growth and basically flat EBITDA. Why would such a company be worth $2B as suggested by numerous articles speculating on buyout offers? The answer is rather easy for anybody doing the research. Liz is a compilation of basically three brands. One that is surging, one that has turned around with good growth, and one that is still...

With the dramatic fall in domestic natural gas prices during 2012, the results of the domestic oilfield services firms have been increasingly scrutinized. The performances have been mixed and the results have been very location specific as expected. The stocks have all headed lower. The key is location, location, location. While the stock market has obsessed daily about the natural gas market in the US, just about every other market whether oil or natural gas around the world is very robust. This provides plenty of opportunity for the best positioned stocks that have been sold off with no regard to location. Naturally results can be relatively predicted based on a companies exposure to domestic natural gas. The less the better. Hence Baker Hughes (BHI) preannounced bad results and Basic Energy Services (BAS) reported bad numbers. On the other hand, Haliburton (HAL) and Schlumberger (SLB) had generally good results though analysts had reduced expectations. Other major players like C...

Interesting report from Bloomberg West on the Facebook (FB) Q112 results just released. Amazingly, Facebook had a revenue decline for the first time ever. This might highlight why Zuckerburg made just a fast move to buy Instagram for $1B. A move that a company in the process of going public shouldn't make. Has any young tech company ever paid so much money for another company? The really crazy part is that Apple (AAPL) just reported faster growth than Facebook. How is it that the most valuable company on the planet is growing faster than the hottest tech company around? Contrary to what is mentioned in this report, the larger social media companies have been waiting too long too go public. Groupon (GRPN) , Zynga (ZNGA) , and now Facebook have apparently waited to the point that growth has slowed down before going public.  My concern with Facebook is that sites such as Twitter and Pinterest are pulling away users time. For business people especially in the financial world,...

Oddly the bets on a negative Apple (AAPL ) quarter were off the charts prior to the release. Every other person on the street suggested that the weak numbers from AT&T (T) and Verizon Wireless (VZ) were signs of impending doom for AAPL. The executives must get a chuckle out of all the non-sense that exists in the media. AAPL reported earnings of $12.30 versus the estimate of $10.06. Yes you read that correctly. Though analysts were rampantly debating whether AAPL would miss estimates, the company actually beat numbers by over 20%. Below are the highlights from Q112 earnings report : quarterly revenue of $39.2 billion compared to revenue of $24.7 billion last year.  quarterly net profit of $11.6 billion, or $12.30 per diluted share compared to $6.40 last year.  Gross margin was 47.4 percent compared to 41.4 percent in the year-ago quarter.  International sales accounted for 64 percent of the quarter’s revenue. sold 35.1 million iPhones in the quarte...

Back on February 29th, SodaStream (SODA) announced Q411 results and provided a little nugget that apparently the whole market missed. The company announced a change to reporting in the U.S. currency (USD) effective January 1st, 2012. Anybody following this company has known that it has reported in euros (EUR) and provided a translation to the USD. This is common of foreign companies. The odd part though is that popular finance websites such as Yahoo Finance (see below Figure 1), Reuters, and probably most others continue to report the analyst estimates in euros. Read the full article on Seeking Alpha. Disclosure: Long SODA. Please review the disclaimer page for more details. 

Clearly the market doesn't work in very precise ways, but honestly how does a $5M revenue cut in guidance lead to such a dramatic loss of market value? Maybe "fuzzy math" is at work. Most investors probably saw that Riverbed Technology (RVBD) lost nearly 29% of its market value on Friday. The company reported basically in-line Q112 numbers. Not too bad at this point considering the major product transition going on. Then the wheels started falling off during the conference call. The CFO guided to revenue that at the high end would miss the $202M Q2 estimate by roughly $5M. Yes, anybody doing the math is probably struggling to understand the stock plunge. It dropped 29% due to a 2% reduction in revenue. All while investors should've known that the company was going through a product transition that would muddy up the financials for the 1H of the year. Read the full article at Seeking Alpha. Disclosure: Long RVBD and CSCO. Please review the disclaimer page for mo...

No, this isn't a next generation chip from Qualcomm (QCOM) . After the bell, Qualcomm reported Q2'12 results that handily beat estimates, but the company provided disappointing guidance for Q3'12. Naturally this disappointed investors to the tune of an initial 5% loss in after hours trading. Should investors react negatively to such guidance or blow it off as management sandbagging? It has become commonplace in the technology world to provide off-the-wall pessimistic guidance in order to not disappoint investors when actual results are reported. The end effect though is that investors get hurt in the process of having a stock sold off following earnings. This appears to be the norm for tech stocks whether born out of the tech collapse in 2000 or due to the success of Apple (AAPL) with a history of guiding below reality. Why not follow the leader? Read the full article at Seeking Alpha. Disclosure: Long AAPL. Please review the disclaimer page for more details. 

Its always a bad situation to have a stock that plunges after hours. Do you panic and sell immediately? Do you hold and hope for a rebound? Or do you read the earnings report, listen to the conference call, and use your past research and knowledge on the stock to make an educated decision? Honestly, it really depends on what the company says compared to expectations. Knowing the company and the stock is the key. The stock reaction can have nothing to do with the company. It might be a buying opportunity. Or if the story has changed, investors have to be willing to cut and run. After the bell tonight, Riverbed Technology (RVBD) reported Q112 numbers that were essentially in-line. Unfortunately, the company guided to Q212 numbers that were a major disappointment to the market. The stock plunged nearly 18% in after hours. Was this move justified? Is the valuation so stretched that bad numbers suggest the stock should plunge? Riverbed is in the middle of a massive product refresh...

Brazil's central bank slashed interest rates yet again making the sixth rate cut in under a year. Rates were lowered a dramatic 75 basis points making the rate 9%. Yes, that is correct. The rate in Brazil still remains one of the highest rates in the world even after 350 basis points in cuts since August. The rate peaked at 12.5% The reason for the cut was an anemic GDP print in Q4 of only 0.3%. Inflation has also dropped with expectations now at only 4.4% for 2012. This could provide cover for even more cuts this year. Amazingly, the interest rate could fall below levels last hit in July 2009 of 8.75%. Even possibly lower. Heck, I'm not sure I understand why Brazil has such a insanely high rate. It doesn't have GDP growth faster than China or India so why are interest rates higher? Anyway, guess that is besides the point. Eventually these rate cuts should help spur the economy. Stocks in our models such as home builder Gafisa (GFA) and wireless provider NII Holding...

This model lost a disappointing 5.8% in March versus a 3.1% gain for the benchmark S&P 500. This model typical outpaces the major indices by a large margin in up periods so the last month was a major exception. Since the end of 2011, this model has been running on the theme that the majority of stocks would retrace the losses experienced since the July 2011 levels. In essence, our theory all along has been any losses since that time period were from irrational fear of a second financial collapse that the Europeans were unlikely to allow. Naturally this fluctuates on a case by case basis where any individual stock could move a lot higher or lower depending on circumstances since then. Unfortunately this theory took a major turn in March as investors piled into dividend paying stocks sending most major indices higher while at the same time selling the higher risk, global growth stocks. In some cases, it was just a small reversal of the gains from the last couple of ...

Big news lately on the LNG export front. Yesterday Cheniere Energy Partners (CQP) got approval to begin construction on it's export terminal in Louisiana. Today Sempra Energy signed agreements with 2 major Japanese companies to develop and construct a natural gas liquefaction export facility in Louisiana as well. While another major step towards exporting the abundance of cheap natural gas in the US, it will take until 2016 before the facility would commence operations. With these 2 commercial agreements with Mitsubishi Corporation and Mitsui & Co ., the project would already have 66% of production set for 20 years. Now the question is whether the US government will ultimately allow the export of this natural resource. The answer so far is yes, but what happens in 2014 when the future prices for 2015 and beyond start soaring? The plan involves building 3 liquefaction trains with a total export capability of 12 Mtpa of LNG, or approximately 1.7 Bcf per day. Constructi...

After the close on Monday, Chesapeake Energy (CHK) filed for an IPO of its oilfield services division. Based on initial review of the S-1, Chesapeake Oilfield Services (COS) should be avoided at best if not shorted. Naturally this will highly depend on the ultimate valuation place on the stock once it prices and starts trading. Chesapeake intends to raise $862M in a much announced IPO of the oilfield services division that performs a big portion of the work for Chesapeake itself. The interesting part is that the sector is under pressure so a lot of investors will see this as a desperate move. Industry leader Haliburton (HAL) is around 52 week lows and last year's fracing IPO C&J Energy Services (CJES) trades near lows as well. Additionally, Chesapeake has made it clear that it needs to raise cash so most contrarian investors might think that such an IPO might be priced to sell. Unfortunately, the funds to be raised and the past comments from the company don't sugges...

Or at least for the moment, iAd has been one of the few recent product failures for Apple (AAPL) . As a long time Apple investor, this honestly doesn't move the needle for them so it isn't much of a concern. Actually, I'd prefer that the company stay out of the ad market all together. Focus on the phone, tablet, and possibly tv markets. As we've written over on Seeking Alpha in 2 articles ( I , II ) about the Millennial Media (MM) IPO, device makers just aren't going to be successful creating systems such as ad networks that only target just the users of those devices. Clearly Samsung has learned nothing from Apple's failure. On a bigger picture, this speaks to some of the issues Apple originally had in the PC market. It had the better PCs and operating system, but the ability of Windows based systems to create cheaper machines and more software eventually over took what Apple could do in a controlled environment. Will history repeat itself again in the p...

Bespoke ran a poll this weekend asking readers where they thought the SP500 would end one month from now. Very interesting to see that currently 58% of respondents are bearish. While a poll of only 429 votes is hardly scientific, it is very indicative of the current mood of the markets. Apparently everybody is expecting a another summer selloff which could be a good signal that after 2 nasty summers the market is ready for a surprise. Will the S&P 500 be higher or lower than its current level one month from now? Selection   Votes Higher  42%                      182 Lower  58%         247 429 votes total Disclosure: No positions mentioned. Please review the disclaimer page for more details. 

Impressive stuff from 3D Systems (DDD). Watch the below video as the CEO showcases the new 3D home printer with Blomberg West. Definitely need to keep an eye on this stock along with Proto Labs (PRLB) that recently went public. This real time printing and creation of manufacturing products has the potential for huge growth. Right now though, 3D Systems trades at 24x forward earnings with only 15% long term earnings growth. Clearly for now the stock doesn't match the growth rate. The question is whether the company has created a product that will dramatically increase growth or whether this product is ultimately a novelty product. This is clearly worth more research. Maybe a weekend project. Disclosure: No positions mentioned. Please read the disclaimer page for more details. 

This model gained a solid 4.3% in March versus 3.1% for the benchmark S&P 500. The model remained strong all month even as the SP500 struggled toward the end of the month.   Trade March was a normal trading month for this model with only 1 trade initiated in order to reduce the cash balance. Time Warner (TWX) was bought as the stock flashed one of the highest Net Payout Yields in the over $10B market cap group with a huge buyback. The stock also maintains a strong 2.9% dividend providing for that investor class as well. For more details on why Time Warner was selected, please read this article . Top Performers The largest gains came from Lowes (LOW) , WellPoint (WLP) , Gap (GPS) , and Goldman Sachs (GS) along with several other stocks that had solid gains. Most of those stocks saw gains that exceeded 10%. Typical of a model that allows for trading signals based on an indicator such as the Net Payout Yield, a stock like Goldman Sachs was purchased ...

On Wednesday night, 2 oil equipment companies priced IPOs. While solid companies in a booming oil and gas shale sector, neither has been hyped a lot by the IPO buzz network. For one, MRC Global (MRC) priced at the low end of the range at $21. Also on Wednesday, the Natural Gas spot price closed below $2 for the first time in 10 years. This is clearly not the ideal time to price an IPO for the energy sector. The other stock is Forum Energy (FET) that provides products and services for the oil sector. Neither stock has gotten much fanfare. For example, both companies have under 30 email alerts followers on Seeking Alpha, while Splunk (SPLK) already has 52 followers, yet it won't go public until next week. Read the full article at Seeking Alpha. Disclosure: No positions mentioned. Please review the disclaimer page for more details. 

Last week, the market presented some major signs of the beginning stage of a recovery in the construction sector. First, railroad shipments of lumber and crushed stone increased dramatically. Second, PPG Industries (PPG) reported blowout earnings in part due to a recovery in the US construction market. While most construction related stocks have already had a run, most are no where near multi year highs. Several options exist for playing the construction recovery. The main debate is whether to focus on US based companies that will benefit solely from the rebound in US construction or globally based companies that will benefit from the largest two economies (US and China) rebounding at the same time. Read the full article at Seeking Alpha. Disclosure: Long ANR, FCX, SHLD, and TEX. Please review the disclaimer page for more details. 

Interesting chart from the EIA on natural gas storage back to 1994 based on the end of March totals. March is the period when inventories normally hit the lowest level after a draw down from winter heating. Naturally since production is down and the winter was one of the warmest on record, inventories have soared. Figure - Working Natural Gas in Storage, End of March Inventories Source - EIA The real question will be whether producers such as Chesapeake Energy (CHK ) have cut back enough on production to reduce supply. If not, prices will continue going lower and storage will max out over summer. Disclosure: No positions mentioned. Please review the disclaimer page for more details. 

After recently writing articles (I, II) about mobile advertising, it seemed appropriate and interesting to check out the mobile payments industry next. With smartphones and tablets now widespread, the mobile payments industry appears ripe for major growth in the next 5 years. Normally being ahead of the curve on mobile adoption, I actually found myself very uninformed on mobile payments. Maybe the central part of the country is just behind on this technology adoption as I've yet to run across a small business owner using a mobile card reader. For now, the industry is very fragmented with numerous developments underway. Not to mention that concepts of whether mobile payments means the customer or the business uses the mobile device are mixed. The potential in this sector has attracted big boys including Intuit (INTU) , the PayPal division of Ebay (EBAY) , and Google (GOOG) to develop various solutions. Also, traditional payment processors MasterCard (MA) and Visa (V) are working ...

Absurd that this country can't pass a long-term transportation bill. Dysfunctional to say the least in Congress. Even with these issues, Terex (TEX) is hiring 500 employees in Washington for Aerial Work Platforms though it is unfortunately only to replace aging equipment as much as new equipment. Globally though Terex continues to hire as infrastructure is a lot higher priority for those countries. See below interview CEO Ron DeFeo on Bloomberg: Disclosure: Long TEX. Please review the disclaimer page for more details. 

It was just over a week ago that the Millennial Media (MM) IPO opened nearly double the IPO price. The stock soared to $28 on high hopes of new investors hoping to capture a part of the fast growing mobile ad market. Now after the first full week of trading, the stock has plunged all the way down to $18.42. What happened? What caused a hot IPO to plunge 26% from the opening day closing price in just a week? My only guess is that the Samsung (SSNLF.PK) announcement of building its own mobile ad exchange for its wireless devices scared off the enthusiasm for the hot IPO. Velti Remains More Attractive To be fair, my recent assessment was that Millennial Media was vastly overpriced and that Velti (VELT) was a much better deal. The recent drop has brought Millennial's valuation more in line with reality, but the impact has also been felt by Velti making it that much cheaper as well. Not to mention, the impact of the Samsung mobile exchange will directly impact Millennial more t...

Over the last few months, the markets have been struggling with whether China was headed for a hard landing. The Shanghai Index ($SSEC) recently headed back to 3 year lows on these fears. What though if China was already re-accelerating? Recent reports on bank lending and inflation suggest that the economy has already hit bottom. David Carbon, Managing Director of Economics and Currencies at DBS Bank, thinks China hit bottom prior to the start of 2012. Now with the inflation data picking up (March came in at 3.6% vs 3.3% for February) it signals the economy already turning around. Song Wun of CIMB Research thinks China could expand as much as 9% this year with a target of 8.7%. Remember that the government set an official target of 7.5% though any smart investor should've known this was the lowest possible. Instead, the market sank thinking a hard landing was on the way. Is it possible that just as the European crisis was much to ado about nothing so could the fears of a har...

Samsung Electronics reported a large increase in profits that easily beat analyst estimates. The largest Asian consumer-electronics maker beat estimates by selling more phones than even Apple (AAPL) . Not that this is new to most investors, but Samsung has become a very formidable competitor in the smartphone market. Also, assuming Apple enters the TV market as expected both companies will go head to head in that market as well. The real question remains whether people are buying Samsung phones over an iPhone or as the best option available or for the price. Either way, it definitely shows where consumers are buying phones instead of Nokia (NOK) and Research in Motion (RIMM) . Without doing much research, I'm assuming most of the gains come from Asian markets and not North America. With most of my friends owning iPhones, its difficult to assess the Galaxy as a true threat to the iPhone. Bloomberg West did a nice piece the other night about the margins on the two phones. T...

Which company is a better investment at this point: Time Warner Cable (TWC) or Time Warner (TWX) ? I bet most investors wonder if the answer isn't none of the above. From a high level, both stocks offer nearly 3% dividends, making the stocks attractive to a large swath of investors. What about for investors that want the 4%+ dividend yielders? Let's first review these two companies that split back in 2009. Overview: Time Warner Cable The company is among the largest providers of video, high-speed data and phone services in the United States, connecting more than 14.5 million customers in 29 states to entertainment, information and each other. Time Warner Cable Business Class offers data, video, and phone services to businesses of all sizes, cell tower backhaul services to wireless carriers, and through its NaviSite subsidiary, enterprise-class hosting, managed application, messaging and cloud services. Time Warner Cable Media, the advertising arm of Time Warner Cable, offers na...

As we highlighted on our blog back in August 2009 [ Apple to $1,000 ], the concept has been around for over 2 years now. Back then the rumor of a tablet was circulating and the Mac was expected to continue gaining share. Instead, the iPad has taken off and offers such great functionality that it has replaced a lot of the expected new demand for the Mac. Either way though, the concept of Apple (AAPL) gaining more share of the computer market has come to fruition. The news of the day was that analyst Brian White of Topeka Capital slapped a $1,001 price target on Apple. While this is the first official Wall Street analyst to place such a lofty target on the stock, he clearly wasn't the first mainstream analyst to shoot that high. Not to mention the big difference between suggesting that target with the stock at $140 in the midst of a financial crisis and saying it with the stock at $600 with the S&P500 at multi year highs. Either way, the only reason Apple hasn't alread...

Finally the merger of Express Scripts (ESRX) and Medco Health (MHS) closed today . It took since last July to close the merger and any investors holding on this period had limited gains. See graph below nothing the Medco stock closed around $67 around the announcement and only recently reclaimed those levels. Unfortunately our Net Payout Yields model held onto the stock for that period, but at least the end result has been positive. As of the close today, each original Medco share would be worth $73.75.  Now the key to holding Express Scripts going forward will be whether the combined company continues funding huge dividends and buybacks. See our previous blog post after the original announcement. Details from the PR: Following consummation of the acquisition, each share of pre-closing Medco common stock was converted into (i) the right to receive $28.80 in cash, without interest and (ii) 0.81 shares of common stock of the new Express Scripts The company expects syn...

The WSJ reported around noon on Friday that Liz Claiborne (LIZ) has been in talks with private equity firms over a potential deal around $20 a share. Currently, it doesn't appear that any of the firms, such as KKR & Co (KKR) , Permira or Warburg Pincus LLC, find that price appealing. Not to mention that the Liz management has denied any interest in selling the company. The news was enough to send the stock soaring. It closed at $13.36, up nearly 13% at a new 52-week high. At $20, Liz would have a value around $2B. Is that an appealing price for long investors? First, lets look back to the recent transformation of the company. Back in October, I wrote an article about the transformation of the company. Just prior to that article, an investor could've bought Liz's stock in the $4s. Now the stock has tripled and a deal around $20 would've given an investor a 300% gain in less than six months. Read the full article at Seeking Alpha. Disclosure: Long LIZ. Please r...

Several interesting IPOs went public this week. The leading ones include mobile advertising provider Millennial Media (MM) and Annie's (BNNY) , both soaring over 100% from the IPO price at one point. While the organic bakery market is interesting, in this article I wanted to focus on the rapidly growing mobile advertising market. This space became more appealing recently with the great results posted by Velti (VELT) a few weeks back. Now with the IPO of Millennial Media, the sector now offers a couple of good investment options. Millennial Media The company is the leading independent mobile ad network provider. Its technology, tools, and services help developers maximize their advertising revenue, acquire users for their apps, and gain insight about their users. The company has a proprietary tech and data platform known as MYDAS, that determines which ad to deliver in real-time. Read the full article at Seeking Alpha. Disclosure: Long VELT. Please review the disclaimer page ...