Deutsche Bank upgraded Clorox (NYSE: CLX) to Buy from Hold on valuation and believes upside to earnings forecasts is likely. The firm raised its target on shares to $66 from $65.
Kaufman Bros. upgraded eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) to Buy from Hold on expectations improved Marketplace fundamentals will serve as a positive catalyst for shares. The firm raised its price target on the stock to $29 from $22.
Roth Capital believes Zumiez (NASDAQ: ZUMZ) is well positioned for improved results and margins. The firm, which upgraded shares to Buy from Hold and raised its target to $22 from $16, said September back-to-school results bode well for the holiday season and demonstrate that Zumiez can drive conversion during peak shopping periods.
Northrop Grumman (NYSE: NOC) was upgraded to Sell from Conviction Sell at Goldman.
Adobe (NASDAQ: ADBE) was upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Baird.
Monster Worldwide (NYSE: MWW) was upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at JPMorgan.
U.S. stock futures were mixed Thursday morning after Cisco Systems reported a 46 percent plunge in quarterly profit drop, as retailers started reporting what is expected to be disappointing July sales, and ahead of jobless data coming out before the bell.
Cisco Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO) reported quarterly results late Wednesday, posting a 46 percent drop in earnings to $1.1 billion, or 19 cents per share, but adjust earnings were 31 cents per share, beating analyst expectations for earnings of 29 cents per share. Still, company said the quarter may have been the bottom of the recession-related downturn.
Not to miss out on a national ad opportunity, Monster Worldwide Inc. (NYSE: MWW) will play two commercials on Super Sunday. One has a feel-good theme and another is an attempt to get users to the site.
But, as for investors, there's not much to be festive about. In Q4, Monster's revenues fell 16% to $291 million. Net income fell 37% to $28.6 million, or $0.24 per share.
True, about 44% of revenues come from overseas. Unfortunately, the economic slowdown is also making waves in Europe and Asia.
December Trading Strategies After a stomach churning November, most investors would be happy to just get out of 2008. But our experts offer 10 tactics to profit by before putting this year away for good. http://www.marketwatch.com/newscommentary/tradingstrategies
'12 Days of Christmas' Costs Rise 10.9% This Year'12 Days of Christmas' Costs Rise 10.9% This Year That's this year's cost, according to the annual "Christmas Price Index" compiled by PNC Wealth Management, which tallies the single partridge in a pear tree to the 12 drummers drumming, purchased repeatedly as the song suggests. The price is up $8,508 or 10.9%, from $78,100 last year. PNC checks jewelry stores, dance companies, pet stores and other sources to compile the list. While it is done humorously, PNC said its index mirrors actual economic trends. Seven swans-a-swimming are up 33% this year while a couple items declined: three French hens (down $15 to $30) and six geese-a-laying (down $120 to $240) reflect declines in food prices. http://money.cnn.com/2008/12/01/news/economy/bc.na.us.twelvedays.cos.ap/index.htm?postversion=2008120103
Goldman upgraded Applied Materials (NASDAQ: AMAT) to Buy from Sell and added shares to its Conviction Buy List citing valuation. The firm also upgraded the Semiconductor Capital Equipment Sector to Attractive.
Morgan Keegan believes Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO) will emerge from the slowdown as a stronger company with greater market share and expansion into adjacent markets. Shares were upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform.
Pfizer (NYSE: PFE) was upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Barclays.
Daimler (NYSE: DAI) was upgraded at UBS to Neutral from Sell.
Friedman Billings upgraded Mariner Energy (NYSE: ME) to Market Perform from Underperform on valuation and the company's upcoming catalysts in the deepwater GOM.
Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Goldman.
Deutsche Bank cut Hess Corp (NYSE: HES) and Marathon Oil (NYSE: MRO) to Hold from Buy and Suncor (NYSE: SU) and ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP) to Sell from Hold after cutting their oil price forecast for 2009 to $60/bbl and 2010 to $58/bbl.
Merrill downgraded Akzo Nobel (OTC: AKZOY) to Neutral from Buy on expectations the company's coatings end markets will worsen and chemicals division will see pressure next year.
Monster (NASDAQ: MNST) was lowered at Citigroup to Hold from Buy.
Citigroup upgraded shares of Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM) to Buy from Hold on valuation following the recent weakness and expects positive seasonality in the second half of 2008.
Gilat Satellite (NASDAQ: GILT) was upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at William Blair on valuation.
Cott Corp (NYSE: COT) was raised at UBS to Neutral from Sell.
EOG Resources (NYSE: EOG) was upgraded to Market Perform from Underperform at Bernstein.
Jefferies downgraded shares of Marvell Tech (NASDAQ: MRVL) to Hold from Buy on HDD inventory concerns and share loss at Research in Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM) after checks indicated MRVL likely lost the design for the RIM Javelin to Freescale. The firm lowered their target to $15 from $22.
Oppenheimer downgraded Integrated Device (NASDAQ: IDTI) to Perform from Outperform as they believe the upcoming Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) server memory transition will pressure shares for several quarters.
Broadpoint downgraded shares of Healthaways (NASDAQ: HWAY) to Neutral from Buy as they see few near-term catalysts.
Many Wall Street analysts thought that when Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) lost its bid for Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) that it would take the $45 billion it was going to spend and buy other online companies.
Think again. Microsoft's management says it is not so. According to the FT, "Steve Ballmer, chief executive, scotched talk that Microsoft would turn to a `plan B' of other acquisitions to boost its online presence." Ballmer feels that buying more internet companies will not improve its share of the search market. He is not simply after more pageviews.
The news is probably disappointing to several large online companies. AOL, Facebook, Monster (NASDAQ: MNST), and Digg might all have been part of a Microsoft plan to improve the size of its presence on the web.
The Microsoft comments send another message. Search is important. Display advertising is not. Search is an efficient way to make money. Display advertising's best growth years are behind it.
If Ballmer is right, the online world is about to go through a major upheaval.
Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.
The ARS market has thrust its poisoned tentacles in another direction. After raising interest costs for issuers and wiping out the formerly "safe" cash holdings of individual investors, the Wall Street Journal reports that frozen ARS accounts have hit tech companies as well.
Specifically, the Journal lists $855.7 million worth of ARS holding on the books of these five tech companies, listed as follows:
These companies and others will probably need to write down the value of these securities unless the ARS market unfreezes. If there is an industry that's unscathed by this problem, I'd like to know. But for those who've invested in companies whose cash is frozen in these ARS accounts, there are many restless nights ahead.
Auction-rate securities were supposed to be cash equivalents. Individuals and companies could move in and out of them in a day. The financial instruments have existed since 1985. In an auction, any imbalance in securities bought and sold were picked up by banks and brokerages and sold at the next event. These auctions went on as often as several times a week.
The problem with the market is that when banks started to run low on money, they pulled their commitments to run the auctions, the market fell apart, and the securities do not trade. Because they are illiquid, their values are falling.
Many companies put cash into auction-rate paper to get a slightly higher yield than with government securities. The firms even put the money on their balance sheet as cash equivalents. Now that practice is haunting them.
Several technology firms are stuck with these investments. According toThe Wall Street Journal, Monster (NASDAQ: MNST) had $357 million of this paper at the end of last year. Palm (NASDAQ: PALM) had almost $75 million at the end of February. The companies are going to have to write-down some of the value of this capital which will affect their earnings.
The problem cannot really be blamed on the companies. The market for he paper is over 20-years-old and has functioned like clockwork until recently. It does raise the specter of lawsuits against the banks and brokerages who made the market. They positioned these securities as cash and then pulled the plug on the auctions.
It is one more headache for financial companies in trouble, but in this case, they probably deserve it.
Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.
MOST NOTEWORTHY: Priceline.com, Monster and Internap were today's noteworthy downgrades:
Susquehanna downgraded Priceline.com (NASDAQ: PCLN) to Neutral from Positive as they believe upside may be difficult given the macro environment, competition, and currency headwinds.
JP Morgan lowered Monster (NASDAQ: MNST) to Neutral from Overweight following the company's expectations for higher 1Q08 operating expenses.
Internap (NASDAQ: INAP) was downgraded by Merriman to Neutral from Buy as they believe upside will be limited until the company can complete its integration of the VitalStream CDN acquisition.
Back in 2000, a variety of dot-coms – like Pets.com, LastMinuteTravel.com, Monster.com (Nasdaq: MNST) and so on – spent gobs of money on Super Bowl commercials. Of course, it marked the height of the bubble. Since then, upstart companies have been mostly afraid of producing commercials.
Hey, take a look at this classic ad from Pets.com (now defunct), during the 2000 Super Bowl:
But don't be afraid. While I'm not suggesting that you shell out $2.7 million for a Super Bowl ad, I still think things are different. After all, it's fairly cost-effective to advertise on local cable channels. What's more, online video is also surging.
So how can you crank out a top-quality 30-second spot?
Let's take a look:
Production: Technology is making it incredibly cheap to create commercials. "All you need is an Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) Mac laptop and the iMovie software that comes with the computer," said Rob Frankel, who is the author of The Revenge of Brand X and has his own marketing firm. "And just about any MiniDV camera can produce broadcast-quality video."
That's all he needed to create this spot:
To spice things up, you can use stock footage and music clips (which may even be free). "A simple Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) search will find a lot of stock content," said Frankel.
Crafting the right message: It's temping to be too cute or cutting-edge when putting together a 30-second spot. Unfortunately, the result is that your audience ignores things – or is just confused. Some tips:
Focus on one idea (that's easy to understand). Clutter is your enemy.
Avoid special effects and location shoots.
Don't star in your own commercials.
"Notice that some of the best commercials these days offer one central image or theme with even stark or simplified backgrounds," Rachel Weingarten, who is the president of GTK Marketing Group. "It might be wiser to spend more on the concept and come up with a very clever and catchy phrase or theme or even sweepstakes or promo that can drive people to your website, retail location or some other call to action."
Analyst upgrades:
U.S. stock futures were mixed Thursday morning after Cisco Systems reported a 46 percent plunge in quarterly profit drop, as retailers started reporting what is expected to be disappointing July sales, and ahead of jobless data coming out before the bell.
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Senator Sanders proposes legislation to break up large banks
Closing Bell: Unemployment must not be relevant (GE, ACOM, FNM, ZIOP, MOT, NVDA)
Employee productivity up close to 10%
