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Posted
Oct 08 2009, 11:23 AM
by
Jim Jubak
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
 Before the stock market opened on Thursday, PepsiCo (PEP) reported third-quarter earnings of $1.08 a share on revenue of $11.08 billion.
The earnings were five cents a share above Wall Street earnings estimates -- although up just slightly from the $1.06 reported in the third quarter of 2008 -- but the revenue was $170 million light, declining by 1.5% from the third quarter of 2008. (For more on the earnings season and the market's revenue problem, see my October 5th post.)
Two factors held down results.
First, the world may be emerging from recession, but growth was still very low or even negative in the biggest parts of PepsiCo's market (North America and Europe) for much of the quarter.
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Posted
Oct 02 2009, 11:57 AM
by
Jim Jubak
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Is the stock market entering a more defensive phase with "safe" sectors such as consumer goods set to outperform for a while?
Looks like it to me, given the recent data on which sectors have turned hot and which are cooling off. (See my October 1 post for some of that data.)
And I got more confirmation from the big pop that shares of "safe" PepsiCo (PEP) got this morning after a an upgrade from Deutsche Bank. The upgrade wasn't huge -- the bank raised its 12-month target price to $70 from $66 -- but the stock was up $2.47 a share, or 4.2%, Friday afternoon on what isn't particularly striking news. To me, that shows that there are a lot of investors out there who, right now, want to lower their risk, but stay in stocks.
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Posted
Sep 25 2009, 07:42 AM
by
Minyanville
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
This article is written by Minyanville's John Kelly The last time NFL pro bowler Michael Vick played football was in Kansas. Specifically, Leavenworth, Kan., where he was serving a 23-month sentence at the federal penitentiary. In a scene straight out of "The Longest Yard," Vick, in prison for his involvement in a vicious dog-fighting ring, reportedly played quarterback in jail yard games as a way to kill time and keep in shape. See also, The NFL's Very Own Bernie Madoff. He'll have an opportunity to finally get back on more familiar turf Sunday, as his new team, the Philadelphia Eagles, hosts the Kansas City Chiefs at Lincoln Financial Field. And with Philadelphia's starting quarterback likely to miss the game due to a rib injury, the possibility of Vick playing is high. The game will attract not only Eagles fans and animal rights activists, but also that part of the sports industry whose main concern is sales.
The questions on everyone’s minds are:
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Posted
Sep 24 2009, 09:20 AM
by
Minyanville
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
This article is written by Minyanville's Laurie Petersen
Watching TV on a PC is so last century. The future of media is all about size, according to Dallas Mavericks Owner Mark Cuban, who is also chairman of HDnet.
He’s talking screen size.
As Cuban sees it, the obsession with PCs and the small screens of handheld devices is looking at things all wrong. He foresees a future of media where people watch content, including YouTube (GOOG), on oversized public TVs and even pay for the privilege to do so with their friends.
Cuban’s inspiration was last weekend’s Cowboys-Giants game, the one where the Giants pulled it off at the very last moment. But everyone was talking about the new stadium’s seven-story tall screen from Mitsubishi Electric, he says.
“That screen (the one in the new Cowboys stadium), you can’t take your eyes off it,” Cuban said. Just as we’ve watched screens get smaller, faster, and cheaper, soon we’ll be seeing bigger, better, and cheaper, he predicts.
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Posted
Sep 04 2009, 02:24 PM
by
John Reese
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
The investing world is often littered with new theories and new ideas about how best to make money. But over the years, I've found that the best way to produce solid, market-beating returns is to take advantage of the wisdom history's best investors have been kind enough to share. That's why I created my Guru Strategy computer models, and that's why each week I recap what some of the gurus I follow are saying about the market and economy.
This week the theme seemed to be that, while the economic future remains cloudy, it's a good environment for stock-pickers. That's what Mario Gabelli, a Benjamin Graham disciple with an excellent long-term track record, told Bloomberg. While ETFs or sector plays have become all the rage lately, Gabelli says he's focusing on individual stocks that have strong potential for the next three or four years. He gave his thoughts on potential plays in the financial, airline, newspaper, and telecom industries, and also said the food industry is ripe for a round of mergers.
Another top manager, Donald Yacktman, whose two funds are up about 9% per year over the past decade while the S&P 500 has been in the red, says he's focusing on high-quality stocks. Lower-quality firms have made big gains in the rebound, but the best buys now are plays like Coca-Cola (KO), Pepsi (PEP), and Procter & Gamble (PG), Yacktman, a bottom-up stock-picker, told Bloomberg. He says financials are still dangerous, but that he's found a great play in AmeriCredit (ACF).
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Posted
Aug 21 2009, 10:14 AM
by
Minyanville
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
This article was written by Minyanville's Mike Schuster For the last decade or so, the print industry has been struggling to remain relevant in the face of interactive and online media. Blogs and instant updates have eliminated the need to pick up an outdated version of headlines in bulky newsprint, forcing countless customers to second-guess paying for a paper or magazine. As it continues to lag behind the digital competition, the print industry needs to pull out all the stops -- which is what one publication intends to do. Eager to give its print division a much-needed boost, Time Warner (TWX) is hoping to lure more people to the magazine rack with a vibrant ad campaign for CBS (CBS) programming and Pepsi Max (PEP) in select issues of Entertainment Weekly next month. Bing: Digital Advertising
Much like an audio greeting card, the two-page insert features a two-inch screen that plays short video clips in relatively sharp resolution when the page is opened. Created by the Los Angeles-based Americhip, the video player is controlled by a column of buttons below the screen that select which clip to play -- be it a clip from Big Bang Theory or a commercial for Pepsi Max. The speaker isn't volume controlled but plays fairly loudly -- probably to lure the attention of the commuter sitting beside you on the subway. The video screen is able to hold up to 40 minutes of video and has a rechargeable battery -- though readers will unlikely want to fire up a talking ad after it's run out of juice.
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Posted
Jul 14 2009, 12:22 PM
by
Minyanville
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Click here to view the 10 most horrific commercial jingles of all time!
Music is usually hailed as a uniting force in a divided world. But in the late 1930s, one song may have inadvertently started a war. While Pepsi’s (PEP) “Pepsi Cola Hits the Spot” didn’t play much of a role in World War II, it did eventually start a serious branding rivalry by inspiring a series of equally catchy commercial jingles from rival Coca-Cola (KO), most notably “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing.”
The 2 beverages have since spent decades unleashing some of history’s most addictive jingles -- one of which was responsible for literally setting Michael Jackson's hair on fire.
The world of jingles, be they original compositions or older songs, has since exploded. The money has gotten much bigger, too. When Microsoft (MSFT) used songs from the Rolling Stones and Madonna to promote its new Windows operating systems, both artists were reportedly paid $12 million apiece for their songs.
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Posted
Jun 22 2009, 04:04 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Who needs Advil when it is more expensive than aspirin and probably does no better at reducing pain? Who needs Starbucks (SBUX) when Maxwell House has just as much caffeine?
A new survey of purchasing data from 23,000 stores conducted by the Pointer Media Network shows that many shoppers are simply walking away from their favorite brands because they can’t afford them due to high prices during a recession.
According to Reuters, from 2007 to 2008, of shoppers surveyed “33 percent completely defected to another brand.”
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Posted
May 18 2009, 02:33 PM
by
Minyanville
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Like a friend bringing his down-and-out drinking buddy to Alcoholics Anonymous, government at the city, state and federal level is staging an intervention for many Americans. Their weakness is eating junk food and drinking soda, and they need help.
The government can’t bring everyone to counseling for obesity, so it may use the only arrow in its quiver able to shape habits: taxes. The Senate Finance Committee held a session last week to hear different proposals from experts on how to finance President Obama’s proposed health-care plan. One of the proposals was a federal excise tax -- much like the one for cigarettes -- on soda, as well as energy and sports drinks and sweetened tea drinks. (Diet Coke fiends can breathe easy since diet sodas would be exempt.)
Naturally, fast-food companies, like McDonald’s (MCD) or Pepsi (PEP), oppose the measure, saying it would unfairly target low-income Americans. This argument is accurate -- there isn’t a Whole Foods (WFMI) on Eight Mile -- as America is one of the few developed countries where one must be wealthy to access or buy organic food. Still, this doesn’t offer a solution to the serious problem.
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Posted
Apr 21 2009, 07:47 AM
by
MSN Editors
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Jim Jubak writes two columns a week for MSN Money, and tracks four portfolios constructed for different types of investors. To see more on Jim's picks and their performance, click here.
You have to go back to 2004 to find shares of PepsiCo (PEP) trading as low as the $50 range. Even though 2008 earnings were below those for 2006 and 2007, earnings have grown 20% since then, so with an economic turnaround looming in 2010, these shares look very, very reasonably priced now. (It doesn't hurt that the shares pay a 3.3% dividend while investors wait for the economy.)
PepsiCo's management isn't waiting passively for the turnaround, however. On April 20, the company launched a bid for the part of its two biggest North American bottlers, Pepsi Bottling Group (PBG) and PepsiAmericas (PAS), that it doesn't already own.
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