CNBC Stock Blog
- Saturday, 1 Dec 2012 10:41 PM ETBy: Justin Menza
Home Depot and Lowe’s are clear beneficiaries of a housing recovery. But investors might want to add PetSmart to that list.
“There's a high correlation to housing and pet acquisition,” PetSmart [PETM Loading... ()
Stew Milne / AP
] CEO Robert Moran told CNBC this week. In addition to spending more money at Lowe's [LOW
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] and Home Depot [HD
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], people tend to get a cat or dog after buying a new home. “Right now about 62 percent of households, which equates to 73 million households, have pets. We believe we're incredibly well positioned if there's any type of housing recovery to take advantage of this.” (Read More: Cities With the Most Affordable Homes.)
- Saturday, 1 Dec 2012 10:41 AM ETBy: Justin Menza
Find out what Wall Street analysts had to say about Research In Motion, Tiffany and other retailers in this CNBC.com Stock Blog Roundup.
Analysts have been getting steadily more bullish on Research In Motion [RIMM Loading... ()
Source: Research In Motion] ahead of the long-awaited launch of the BlackBerry 10. Kris Thompson, an analyst at National Bank Financial, said “negativity was really at a peak” over RIM’s prospects. The encouraging reports about Black Friday sales did not extend to luxury and women’s apparel retailers, according to Dana Telsey, CEO Telsey Advisory Group.
- Friday, 30 Nov 2012 11:41 AM ETBy:
David Peltier
For some reason, traders gravitate toward special dividends, and there have been a rash of them lately.
Stella | Getty ImagesTake Costco Wholesale [COST Loading... ()
], for example, which was up 6 percent to $101.88 Wednesday, within a few dollars of its all-time high, on word that management was returning $3 billion of cash to shareholders in a one-time dividend. One time — that’s the problem. Costco’s dividend of $7 a share can be funded primarily with cash on hand; cash that shareholders already had a right to. Rather, management has decided to sell new debt to cover the payout. The one-time dividend is equal to 6.4 years’ worth of the retailer’s regular quarterly payout of $0.275, a 1.1 percent yield. To me, that sounds odd for a growth company that’s only been paying a dividend for eight years.
- Friday, 30 Nov 2012 6:14 AM ETBy:
David Russell
Traders were filling their carts at Dollar General yesterday, looking for the discount retailer to rally.
AP / APOptionMonster’s Depth Charge tracking system detected a surge of call buying in the stock, which has been working its way higher since the middle of last month. Early activity focused on the December 52.50 calls as buyers paid $0.50. Premiums then rose and larger blocks followed for $0.60 to $0.80.
The December 50 calls also saw a heavy buying, including a block of 20,000 contracts that went for $1.50. Volume was more than nine times the open interest in each strike at the start of the day, clearly indicating new activity.
- Thursday, 29 Nov 2012 4:20 PM ETBy: Katie Little
Although Tiffany reported a “pretty significant miss” on earnings Thursday, one analyst said sales were actually fine at the luxury jewelry retailer and forecast that the company should begin to benefit from lower costs.
Source: tiffany.com“Really what happened during the quarter was they sold more high-end pieces and less low-end silver-type products,” said Brian Nagel, a senior equity research analyst at Oppenheimer. “That sales mix shift impacted gross margins.”
During the quarter, Tiffany’s [TIF Loading... ()
] gross margins fell to 54.4 percent from 57.9 percent in the year-ago quarter. Its results were also stung by a higher-than-expected tax rate and high precious metal and diamond costs. - Thursday, 29 Nov 2012 11:31 AM ETBy:
Robert Weinstein
Pushing aside the regressiveness of dividend double taxation, along with the upcoming increase in the tax, many investors will continue to allocate portfolio capital to yield-based stocks.
Getty ImagesAfter all, high taxes or low taxes, as investors we still want to make money. Historically, dividend-paying stocks have performed well. There are some recent notable exceptions to the rule though. Hewlett-Packard [HPQ Loading... ()
] comes to mind rather quickly. HP isn’t a rising stock paying a large dividend though, and that’s what separates the zeroes from the heroes in my opinion.
- Thursday, 29 Nov 2012 11:06 AM ETBy:
Jonas Elmerraji
“Dilbert” creator Scott Adams once said that humans shouldn’t worry about anything we can predict — we’ll solve the problems of approaching asteroids and financial calamities if everyone already knows about them. Instead, it’s the surprises that we should worry about.
Getty ImagesThe cartoonist’s advice is sort of the simplified version of Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s “Black Swan” — and it’s something worth thinking about as the so-called fiscal cliff draws near.
Last year, the debt ceiling debacle threw a wrench into the markets, but this year, the cliff is starting to look more like a fiscal curb by comparison — investors had priced in a resolution on Capitol Hill from the get-go. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that most of Congress is populated by “Dilbert” characters anyway. That’s part of why stocks are trading so differently now than they were back when stocks sat a month away from Uncle Sam running out of cash.
- Thursday, 29 Nov 2012 6:16 AM ETBy:
David Russell
Nabors Industries has been holding long-term lows, and one large buyer is positioning for a gradual rebound.
Rosanne Olson | The Image Bank | Getty ImagesOil derricks in North Dakota pump oil from the Bakken Formation.OptionMonster’s trade scanners detected the purchase of 5,000 January 2015 20 calls for $1.70 yesterday. The volume dwarfed the strike’s open interest of just 53 contracts at the beginning of the day, so this is clearly a new position.
- Wednesday, 28 Nov 2012 5:33 PM ETBy:
Dan Freed
MBIA scored a convincing victory Monday in its latest skirmish with Bank of America, so the somewhat muted response in the shares since then is surprising.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesMBIA shares [MBI Loading... ()
] hit a 52-week low of $6.78 on Nov. 13 after Bank of America [BAC
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] made a tender offer for some of its bonds, hoping to block MBIA from changing the terms of certain bond issues to protect its municipal bond insurance unit in the event of a default by its securitization business. - Wednesday, 28 Nov 2012 3:36 PM ETBy: Katie Little
Rumors that Groupon Chief Executive Officer Andrew Mason may be replaced pushed the company’s shares higher on Wednesday, but one analyst thinks it remains to be seen whether the shake-up would be a good thing for the struggling daily deals site.
Source: groupon.comIs Andrew Mason, founder and CEO of Groupon about to get the boot?“It’s to be determined,” said Aaron Kessler, a senior analyst at Raymond James. “Clearly, Groupon [GRPN Loading... ()
] has had growing pains as of late the last couple quarters.” - Wednesday, 28 Nov 2012 5:58 AM ETBy:
David Russell
Juniper Networks has been bouncing, and the bulls are looking for more mojo in coming weeks.
Fuse | Getty ImagesOptionMonster’s tracking systems detected the purchase of more than 4,000 December 17 calls, almost twice the previous open interest at the strike and therefore new positioning. Initial blocks priced for $0.53, followed by more chunks that went for $0.64.
Calls lock in the price where investors can buy shares, so they can generate some nice leverage in the event of a rally. They can also predict moves in the share price because large traders often amass calls before building a position in a stock.
- Tuesday, 27 Nov 2012 11:36 AM ETBy:
Adam Feuerstein
The 10 best-performing biopharmaceutical stocks of 2012 and their outlook for 2013:
Adam Gault | Getty Images10. Affymax +256 percent
Not only has the commercial launch of Affymax’s [AFFY Loading... ()
] once-monthly anemia drug Omontys started off strong, but investors are also rewarding the company for its efforts — and those of partner Takeda. Affymax shares are up more than 60 percent since Omontys was approved in late March. In other words, the “short the drug launch” thesis that has been nearly bulletproof in biotech for the past few years is not working with Affymax.
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