Out Fox The $treet

Anybody following OCZ Tech (OCZ) knows that rumors have been swirling that Seagate Tech (STX) has made a bid to buy the company for over $1B. Well the rumors suggested that the deal would be announced on Monday during the Q212 earnings report for Seagate. After the close on Monday, Seagate reported disappointing numbers that sent its stock down some 8%. Unfortunately though for OCZ shareholders no mention was made of the OCZ buyout. Not even a question from analysts regarding the rumors. Not to much of a surprise but the stock plummeted during the regular session and even further after hours. Closing at $5.36 most of the rumor gains were gone. Then the story gets strange. While the CEO was busy claiming no real need for buying technology, the CFO trots out late and tells Reuters the desire to purchase a SSD company. Within a span of hours, the company appears happy with the in-house program to suddenly needing external sources. Heck, even Piper Jaffray came out after the conf...

Not many people probably realize this, but the S&P 500 is approaching the yearly highs and the post recovery highs. Back at the end of April the market peaked out around 1,420 and sold off down to 1,270. Amazingly though considering the turmoil still going on in Europe and the weakness in China, the market rallied to 1,386 on Friday. Placing it just a small rally away from those highs. See the chart below: Chart - S&P 500 Note the higher highs and lower lows over the last two months very much indicating a breakout. The small cap Russell 2000 has not had the same outcome. While not too far behind the large caps, the smaller cap index still remains below the July peak at 820 and further behind the end of March top around 850. Chart - Russell 2000  The main reason for the outperformance of the S&P 500 remains the popularity of dividend paying stocks that are more common in that index. As investors become more comfortable with the stock market and its ab...

After it released its Q1 2013 earnings report on July 10th, OCZ Technology (OCZ) dropped over 20% in a matter of days. Importantly, though, the stock did not hit a new 52 week low below $4.14, suggesting that maybe the worst was finally over for long suffering shareholders. The leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) for computing devices and systems met on the revenue line and missed on the bottom line. So naturally the 20% selloff must've been justified with a earnings miss? Earnings Miss The company reported a $0.17 loss versus expectations of a $0.12 loss. The bigger than expected loss cemented all of the fears of the longs and encouraged the shorts to press further on the stock. Read the full article at Seeking Alpha. Disclsoure: Long OCZ. Please review the disclaimer page for more details. 

Prior to the market open on Wednesday, ConocoPhillips (COP) reported earnings that generally beat significantly reduced estimates. This earnings report was more interesting than normal since it was the first independent report since the company split from Phillips 66 (PSX) . Following completion of the split, ConocoPhillips claims to now be the world's largest independent exploration and production company, based on proved reserves and production of liquids and natural gas. Read the full article at Seeking Alpha. Disclosure: Long COP. Please review the disclaimer page for more details. 

After last quarters disappointing earnings report, this once high flying maker of motion sensing technology dropped 50% to $9. On the previous conference call, InvenSense (INVN) spoke of a bright future amid a hiccup in the supply chain that was limiting the ability of handset makers to utilize the motion sensing technology for 4G LTE phones. Hard to justify the major selloff when the problem was well known to be caused by a major supplier by the name of Qualcomm (QCOM) . Fast forward to Q113 earnings and InvenSense reported numbers slightly above estimates. The company also guided to sequential revenue growth of roughly 40% which should capture investor attention. Not to mention, the results continue to be impacted to the tune of $3-4M by the known issue with 28nm chips provided by Qualcomm. The absolute performance remains strong, but the question remains whether the relative performance will be enough. The market has a funny way of only being concerned with the comparison to analys...

Verizon Communications (VZ) continues to be able to squeeze out costs from a slow growing revenue base. Though Q212 revenues only grew 3.7%, the bottom line grew by 12.3%. This gain was largely due to a reduction in the cost of services and sales by $262M combined with a $38M reduction in interest expense. Verizon is a global leader in delivering broadband and other wireless and wireline services to consumer, business, government and wholesale customers. Verizon Wireless has more than 94M retail customers though it is 45% owned by Vodafone (VOD) . Though operating efficiency continues to improve the most concerning part has to be that wireless revenue is only increasing 7.3%. If Sprint (S) ever becomes a more formidable competitor, Verizon might see the ability to lower costs and improve margins come to an end with little growth to spare. Read the full article at Seeking Alpha. Disclosure: Long AAPL. Please review the disclaimer page for more details. 

Last Friday, oil services companies Baker Hughes (BHI) and Schlumberger (SLB) reported earnings that helped drive up the Oil Services Index (OIH) by 1.2%. A strong performance considering the market was weak with the S&P 500 falling more than 1%. If anything, the price jumps were more based on a relief rally that the industry didn't keep falling off a cliff after a very weak start to the year. Stocks in the sector, including Weatherford International (WFT) , had been trading close to two year lows. The industry in general had been undergoing a boom with demand for more complex and time consuming drilling, completion, and pressure pumping services due to drilling deeper wells in more harsh conditions or requiring more complex techniques due to horizontal drilling versus the previously more common vertical drilling. Read the full article at Seeking Article Disclaimer: Long WFT. Please review the disclaimer page for more details.