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Posted
Oct 06 2009, 07:49 AM
by
Minyanville
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
 This article is written by Minyanville's Josh Lipton
This week marks the start of the third-quarter-earnings season, as Alcoa (AA) reports earnings on October 7.
The Street is expecting corporate earnings to decline 24.8%, which would mark the first time the S&P 500 has recorded nine straight quarters of negative growth since Thomson Reuters began tracking the data in 1998.
However, that 24.8% drop is still slightly better than the 27.3% fall in the second quarter. In fact, analysts say earnings should show signs of improvement over for the short term, due to cost control, inventory restocking, and easy comparisons against a terrible 2008 -- particularly among the financials.
“Things get less bad this quarter, with smaller year-over-year losses than in the first quarter and second quarter,” S&P equity analyst Alec Young tells us. See also What to Expect for Stocks in October. Looking further ahead, for 2010, the crystal ball of professional forecasters becomes much cloudier and, frankly, your guess is as good as that of any bow-tied CFA working on Wall Street: Nobody really knows how this struggling economy will perform once it’s weaned off Uncle Sam’s massive federal subsidies.
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Posted
Oct 02 2009, 05:13 PM
by
John Reese
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
When it comes to investing, I firmly believe that reinventing the wheel can be a dangerous game. If you want to beat the market over the long haul, I think your best bet is to learn from those rare investors who have done just that -- that's why I created my Guru Strategy computer models, and it's why at the end of every week I examine what some top strategists have been saying about the market and the economy.
Over the past week, continued uncertainty about the economic recovery has made for some divergent opinions on where the market is headed. On the whole, however, the gurus I keep an eye on have leaned to the bullish side.
Kent Croft -- whose Croft Value fund is in the top 7% of funds in its category over the past three, five, and ten years, according to Morningstar -- says, for example, that he’s still finding plenty of value in the market. He told Yahoo! TechTicker that he's high on quality firms that offer “growth at a discounted price”; he has his eye on Cisco, and some high-dividend plays in the healthcare sector.
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Posted
Oct 01 2009, 01:00 PM
by
Jim Jubak
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
 Cisco Systems (CSCO) announced Thursday an offer to buy video conferencing leader Tandberg for $3 billion in cash.
This is exactly the kind of new economy deal-making that drove me to add Cisco to Jubak's Picks on September 25th. (For more on the emerging new economy, see my September 25th post.)
The deal, which has been recommended by Tandberg's board, will extend Cisco's current video conferencing product line, heavily weighted toward high-end “telepresence” systems that sell for $150,000 to $200,000, into the larger conference room and desktop video conferencing market. Bing: How Cisco's telepresence works
The high-end telepresence market is about $500 million annually, but the video conferencing market is about $3.5 billion, according to technology market watcher Gartner. The video conferencing market is growing by about 18% a year, Gartner estimates.
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Posted
Sep 25 2009, 09:49 AM
by
Jim Jubak
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Remarks by Cisco Systems' (CSCO) chief executive John Chambers got me thinking about the potential for a new economy emerging in 2011 and beyond, so it's only fair that I begin my next stock market portfolio with shares of Cisco. (See my Friday morning post
for more on why I believe we're seeing the beginnings of the next stock market and what it might look like.)
I'm buying these shares today for my 12- to 18-month Jubak's Picks portfolio. Cisco is also a member of my long-term Jubak Picks 50 portfolio based on my book "The Jubak Picks."
Bing: Cisco and the smart grid
In a conference presentation, Chambers focused on what Cisco calls its advanced technologies business segment. This is a collection of businesses that each has the potential to become billion-dollar businesses. Chambers said Cisco had identified 30 such opportunities. (The advanced technologies segment accounted for about 29% of the company's revenue in fiscal 2008.)
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Posted
Sep 16 2009, 07:26 AM
by
Minyanville
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
This article is written by Minyanville's Sean Udall
Listening to CNBC yesterday morning I was struck by two key things: First, there are obvious factors/evidence that many are choosing to ignore. Second, we should always be mindful of what may not be obvious and try to skate to where the puck is going to be. However, sometimes the obvious meshes with where the puck is going. I find this especially true during times of great collective doubt. Read Our Marionette Economy for an opposing viewpoint.
Post 1991, it was very popular to doubt the rally. We were at war and the S&L crisis was far from being declared dead. It was an incredible time to believe that stocks deserved to be pushed higher -- especially in light of numerous signs of profound growth in many industries.
Moreover, when I hear that the market price is "unjustified" by "current fundamentals," I simply know we're going higher in the intermediate term and longer.
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Posted
Aug 21 2009, 10:42 AM
by
Jim Jubak
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Ever since this recession began, Cisco Systems (CSCO) chief executive John Chambers has shown an unexpected talent for taking all the joy out of his company's earnings report.
And he did it again when, on August 5, Cisco reported earnings of 31 cents a share for the company's fiscal fourth quarter that ended on July 25.
That beat Wall Street estimates by two cents a share. (Both Cisco's and Wall Street's numbers exclude things like stock compensation that I think should be deducted as costs but, hey, that's how Wall Street scores the quarterly earnings game.) Revenue did fall 18% from the fiscal fourth quarter of 2008, but still beat Wall Street estimates of $8.51 billion by about $300 million. Gross margins held steady at 64%.
Bing: More on Cisco Systems
But investors who might have hoped that Chambers would call this quarter the bottom or forecast a looming turnaround would have been disappointed.
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Posted
Aug 04 2009, 07:33 AM
by
Minyanville
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
 This article was written by Minyanville's Glenn Curtis
Back around the year 2000, California-based Cisco Systems (CSCO) was a rock star, and as such, was pretty much a must-own for retail and institutional shareholders. These days, it doesn’t seem to enjoy quite the same reputation, and the groupies have, for the most part, moved on. But with the stock having bounced off its lows and the company’s fourth-quarter earnings just around the corner (August 5), now’s the time to “belly up to the bar” (to steal a phrase from our fearless leader, Professor Toddo). Here’s what makes me think the stock computes (sorry, couldn’t resist): 1. I’m not a momentum guy by any stretch of the imagination, but if the stock manages to make a new high, the shares could roll to the mid or upper $20s.
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Posted
Jun 05 2009, 05:59 PM
by
Charley Blaine
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Not finishing in the black for 2009 on Friday was probably a disappointment for many fervent watchers of the Dow Jones Industrial Average ($INDU).
But they can take solace in this signal: The index did finish above its 200-day moving average for the first time since May 19, 2008 -- nearly 13 months ago.
Why should you care? How a stock or an index trades against a moving average is a measure of investor confidence. When the stock or index moves off a low and climbs above a moving average is a strong signal of returning confidence.
The 200-day moving average is very closely watched. Why? I offer Nicholas Lewarne's note in a recent post on the Naked Hedge Fund blog as simple explanation. "The 200 Day MA is the Great Wall that separates Bull market from Bear market."
Bull market: That's a word few people have dared utter for months. Maybe it's worth learning how to say it again.
The fact is, the Dow is the last of the three major indexes to cross its 200-day moving average. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index ($INX) crossed the threshold May 28 and is now trading a bit more than 2% more than its 200-day average. The Nasdaq Composite Index ($COMPX) moved above its 200-day moving average on May 26 and is now trading nearly 10% above the average
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Posted
May 07 2009, 04:23 AM
by
Jon Markman
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Cisco Systems (CSCO) reported strong earnings this week, but there are lots of other companies in the networking space that have cropped up in the past few years and deserve investors' attention.
One that our StockScouter system has liked a lot recently is SonicWall (SNWL), a small but fast-growing company based in Sunnyvale, Calif., that specializes in network and content security. Its size and earnings are dwarfed by industry giants Cisco and Juniper (JNPR), yet it has earned a secure niche for itself due to a strong lineup of innovative products.
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Posted
Apr 28 2009, 03:48 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
By the middle of the year, the federal government will own large, and in some cases, controlling interests, in two car companies and several major banks. There is a chance the the extent of rescue efforts and government ownership could move to auto parts suppliers and insurance companies. If the Treasury can pick up stock in Cisco (CSCO) and Intel (INTC), it can control most of the important sectors of the economy. That raises the issue of how the federal government gets all of that taxpayer money back.
The Wall Street Journal has reported that Citigroup (C) and Bank of America (BAC) have done poorly on their “stress tests”. Each bank may be encouraged to raise more capital. As a number of analysts have pointed out, private equity has no interest in stakes in troubled banks, even at a steep discount to current market values.
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