Stocks News

Fears that the European debt crisis may worsen while the US and China's economies are slowing down, investors lost their risk appetite and looked for the safe heaven like the dollar and the yen, avoiding the stocks, the euro and the commodities. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index fell by 1% at 15:00 in Tokyo. Nikkei 225 Nikkei 225 fell today by 0.67% or 68.20 points closing at 10069.53. From 225 shares, 36 advanced, 175 declined and 14 unchanged. Sectors leading the decline were the industrials that lost 33.46 points and the technology that lost 14.23 points. Lagging shares today were Fanuc Ltd which fell by 1.13% closing at 14040 yen, second was Tokyo Electron Ltd which fell by 2.85% closing at 4435 yen. And Kyocera Corp which fell by 1.42% closing at 8360 yen. Among the shares that advanced Fast Retailing Co Ltd topped the list by rising 1.96% closing at 13550 yen, followed by Denso Corp which rose by 1.88% and closing at...

Novellus Systems (NASDAQ: NVLS) will be reporting its second-quarter 2011 results Monday, July 11, after the closing bell. While Novellus is not usually a sector mover, investors will be looking for early signs of what to expect from tech sector earnings. Analysts are looking for Novellus to report per-share earnings of $0.76, which is up from $0.67 per share in the same period of last year. The consensus earnings estimate is unchanged in the past 60 days. Analysts also expect to see revenues of $352.3 million, an increase of 9.6% from a year ago. Note that Novellus earnings have grown in each of the past five quarters, topping consensus estimates each time. And analysts so far are looking for full-year EPS to be 15.4% higher than a year ago and revenues to come in 11.1% higher. The Company Novellus Systems develops, manufactures, sells and supports equipment used in the fabrication of integrated circuits. The San Jose, California-based company operates in two segments: the Semiconductor...

By:  Chuck Carnevale Earnings Yield the Foundation of Valuation Individual companies derive their value from the amount of earnings and cash flows they are capable of generating for their stakeholders.  The market will inevitably capitalize a publicly traded company’s shares based on the velocity and volume of earnings generated.  A PE ratio of plus or minus 15 generally applies to the average company growing earnings between zero and 12% a year.  The essence behind this valuation is the idea that any company that generates a profitable income stream is worth more than one times earnings. In other words, if you owned a profitable business, you would expect a prospective buyer to pay you more than one times its annual earnings, even if it wasn't growing.  As long as the business is profitable, it has a value greater than its annual profits.  From the seller's point of view, why sell your business for only what it would generate for you over such a short...

The following stocks hit new 52-week highs in Wednesday's trading session (listed from highest total volume to lowest): 1) Wendy's/Arby's Group (NYSE: WEN): Shares of Wendy's/Arby's hit a 52-week high of $5.45 in Wednesday's trading session. The stock closed at $5.41. The year-to-date performance of Wendy's/Arby's has been a gain of 17.1%. 2) Halliburton (NYSE: HAL): Shares of Halliburton hit a 52-week high of $52.72 in Wednesday's trading session. The stock closed at $52.66. The year-to-date performance of Halliburton has been a gain of 29.4%. 3) Kinetic Concepts (NYSE: KCI): Shares of Kinetic Concepts hit a 52-week high of $67.38 in Wednesday's trading session. The stock closed at $66.20. The year-to-date performance of Kinetic Concepts has been a gain of 58.1%. 4) Kraft Foods (NYSE: KFT): Shares of Kraft Foods hit a 52-week high of $35.87 in Wednesday's trading session. The stock closed at $35.85. The year-to-date performance of Kraft has been a gain of 15.8%. 5) Cablevision Systems (NYSE: CVC): Shares o Cablevision hit...

Angel Biotech (LON:ABH), the biopharmaceutical contract manufacturer, has signed a revised, longer-term contract with fellow AIM company Reneuron (LON:RENE) that will see it provide development and manufacturing services to support the development programme for ReNeuron’s ReN001 stem cell therapy for stroke. The work programme is expected to continue through to mid-2012; the value of the contract was not disclosed. The programme includes the GMP (good manufacturing practice) manufacture and related work for future cohorts of patients in ReNeuron’s ongoing PISCES clinical trial with ReN001 in stroke. The structure of the contract allows much more flexibility for both parties in terms of work scheduling, thereby giving ReNeuron the ability to match the needs and opportunities of its growing development programmes in real time. Angel Biotechnology and ReNeuron have been working in collaboration for a number of years. The contract to manufacture ReN001 was originally agreed in June 2009 and production of the GMP grade treatment began in November 2010. Since then,...

US stock futures are higher this morning, as investors are awaiting factory-orders data. Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average surged 31 points to 12,545.00 and futures on the S&P 500 stock index rose 1.70 points to 1,336.50. Nasdaq 100 futures gained 10.00 points to 2,365.25. US stocks closed higher on Friday, with the Dow Jones industrial average gaining 1.36% to 12,582.77, the broader Standard & Poor's 500 index rising 1.44% to 1,339.67 and the NASDAQ composite index surging 1.53% to 2,816.03. Data on May factory orders will be released at 10 a.m. ET. The New York Times Company (NYSE: NYT) sold more than half of its minority ownership in the Boston Red Sox. Whirlpool Corp (NYSE: WHR) said that the United States District Court of Delaware had expanded a jury decision that said certain LG refrigerators had infringed on Whirlpool Corporation's patented technology. Exxon Mobil Corp (NYSE: XOM) estimated that between 750 to 1,000 barrels of oil may have leaked into the Yellowstone River...

Some of the stocks that may grab investor focus today are: The New York Times Company (NYSE: NYT) sold more than half of its minority ownership in the Boston Red Sox. NYT shares dropped 0.11% to close at $8.71 on Friday. Whirlpool Corp (NYSE: WHR) said that the United States District Court of Delaware had expanded a jury decision that said certain LG refrigerators had infringed on Whirlpool Corporation's patented technology. WHR shares gained 1.80% to close at $82.78 on Friday. The US Food and Drug Administration approved a new lung drug by Novartis AG (NYSE: NVS), but in a lower dose. NVS shares rose 0.07% to close at $61.15 on Friday. Exxon Mobil Corp (NYSE: XOM) estimated that between 750 to 1,000 barrels of oil may have leaked into the Yellowstone River in Montana from a damaged pipeline.

K3 Business Technology (LON:KBT), the AIM listed company has sells enterprise resource planning software, hosting and managed services to the supply chain industry, has snapped up the Retail Merchandising Division of Azurri Computer Solutions Ltd. K3 is paying an initial £1.0 million in cash for the business with a further £0.5 million payable dependent on increases in gross margin generated by Azurri Retail over the next two years. Shares in K3 were unmoved at 222.5p. K3 said Azurri Retail was a highly complementary fit with its own retail software operations, adding further specialist skills, and would be readily integrated into the group. The deal is in line with K3’s strategy to build recurring revenues and acquire profitable user bases with significant cross-selling opportunities, in particular for its hosting and managed services offering. Andy Makeham, the chief executive of K3, said: “I am delighted to have completed the acquisition of Azurri Retail. We continue to strengthen recurring revenues by acquiring new user...

Goaaaaaaaaaaaaaaal! We are over our $50,000 mark and right on schedule at the halfway mark! Not bad considering we began with our aggressive $10,000 virtual portfolio last year, which we ran up to $36,630 – put that $11,630 back in the virtual bank and began this year in February with a $25,000 Portfolio. The last major update to our virtual portfolio was back on May 21st. We do send out Alert updates on a regular basis and discuss the trade ideas daily in Member Chat. Now we can start July off with a clean $50,000 Portfolio with the same goal – to double up in 6 months but sticking to the same small allocation hit and run trade ideas that we used (mostly) in the first half. I urge you to read the original post and the update if you haven’t already to get an idea of what we are trying to learn by following this "hyper-aggressive" portfolio model. As promised,...

Social network website MySpace closed another chapter in its tumultuous history Wednesday, as advertising company Specific Media bought the company from News Corporation (NASDAQ: NWSA) for $35 million. The sale is a deep loss for News Corp., which bought MySpace in 2005 for $580 million. MySpace is known for its meteoric rise in popularity and valuation, only to see its enormous user base leave for competitors like Facebook and Twitter. MySpace is still used by a niche group of web users, such as musicians and younger creative people. “MySpace is a recognized leader that has pioneered the social media space. The company has transformed the ways in which audiences discover, consume and engage with content online,” Tim Vanderhook, Specific Media's CEO said. “There are many synergies between our companies as we are both focused on enhancing digital media experiences by fueling connections with relevance and interest. We look forward to combining our platforms to drive the next generation of digital innovation.” Notably, musician and actor...