Browse by Tags

• Stocks that won and lost in Nasdaq short interest

  Posted Apr 14 2008, 06:07 AM by Douglas McIntyre
  Filed under: Microsoft, Cisco, Yahoo, E*Trade, Intel, Sirius, XM Satellite Radio, JetBlue, Dell, Take-Two Interactive, Electronic Arts
  Rating:

  Most companies on Nasdaq did fairly well with the shorts in the two-week period which ended on March 31. The two tremendous exceptions were Level 3, where short interest moved up 20.3 million shares to 243.9 million, and Sirius, where shares sold short jumped 40.4 million to 137.8 million.

  In a tough stock market and credit environment, it is not hard to see why investors would place bets against both companies. Each stock trades near its 52-week low. Level 3 recently pushed out its president. Although it is in an attractive business, bandwidth infrastructure, it is a patch-work of M&A work with a large amount of debt and almost no cash-flow. In other words, a liquidation candidate in a deep recession.

  Sirius is also hurt by a high debt-load -- over $1.2 billion -- and negative operating income. If the company's merger with XM Satellite does not go through, it may not be able to survive as a standalone company either.   Read More...

  Discuss ( 2 comments) 1,725 Views Digg this | Email this | Link to this

• Short interest jumps up at discount brokers

  Posted Dec 29 2007, 07:39 AM by Douglas McIntyre
  Filed under: E*Trade, Intel, Sirius
  Rating:

  One of the most interesting sets of numbers that hits Wall Street every two weeks is short interest in stock traded on the major exchanges. The number represents bets being made against a stock going up and in favor of its falling. Several big names are usually high on the list, including Level 3, Sirius, and Intel.

  For the period ending December 14, shares sold short went way up for the three big discount brokers. It makes sense that E*Trade is on the list. It has had such significant problems with sub-prime financial instruments that its short interest at 53.7 million shares, up 3.9 million from the last measurement date on November 30, is understandable.

  But, shares sold short in Schwab moved up 6.1 million to 27.8 million for the period. At TDAmeritrade the short interest jumped by 8.2 million shares to 17.8 million.   Read More...

  Discuss ( 5 comments) 6,709 Views Digg this | Email this | Link to this

• 10 stocks that could double in 2008

  Posted Dec 16 2007, 02:30 PM by Douglas McIntyre
  Filed under: Apple, Amazon, Vonage, E*Trade, Sirius, XM Satellite Radio
  Rating:

  It is hard to find stocks that could double in a fairly short period of time. It rarely happens with shares in really big companies. There are exceptions like Apple and Amazon. But, most stocks that make big moves are smaller, and, they are often shares that have had a big fall.

  For a stock to double over a few quarters it needs a catalyst of amazing earnings, a big customer win, a break-up or a buy-out. At 24/7 Wall St. we went through hundreds of companies to find ones with shares that could double. Each firm had to be matched with one or more compelling reasons to create a significant spike.

  We came up with the list, and if you want to get greater detail on the analysis you can see it here.   Read More...

  Discuss ( 32 comments) 84,972 Views Digg this | Email this | Link to this

• E*Trade gets manhandled

  Posted Nov 12 2007, 12:32 PM by Matt Koppenheffer
  Filed under: CAPS, E*Trade
  Rating:

  There's no sugar-coating possible here. Shares of E*Trade have been absolutely shelled today and the company's market cap has been more than cut in half.
  
  On Friday, the company disclosed that its portfolio of asset backed securities (mainly its ABS CDOs) has been looking a little green around the gills since the end of the third quarter, and will likely mean that the company will miss its previous guidance for full year earnings.
  
  Now that news alone would smart, but to top it off, a Citigroup analyst released a report suggesting that liquidity could be a real concern for E*Trade and the possibility of bankruptcy is not out of the question. He believes that the trouble the company has been facing could cause customers to pull out assets en masse.   Read More...

  Discuss (no comments) 302 Views Digg this | Email this | Link to this