National Western Life Insurance Stock Hammered

09. October 2008 · Comments Off · Categories: Stock Highlight · Tags:

National Western Life Insurance (NasdaqGS: NWLI) is currently trading down nearly 25% for the day. The company reported earnings on October 7th. Apparently, investors didn’t like what they say and have now shaved $61 off the price of stock.

National Western Life Insurance Company (National Western) is a stock life insurance company that does business in 49 states and the District of Columbia.

The stock for this company is now trading as one of today’s most actives, with investors (maybe a few big ones) heading to the exits.

The company’s numbers don’t look all that bad. They just reported earning $18,142,000 for the last quarter, so sentiment just might be related to the “financial crisis” gripping the interest of so many right now.

Big Oil Profits Surge

28. July 2008 · Comments Off · Categories: Stock Highlight · Tags: , , ,

If you’ve been wondering whether Big Oil is making huge profits off of record crude oil prices, wonder no more. Of course they are. This week reports are expected to come in from the five major publicly traded oil companies and all indications are they had a great quarter.

The main reason is that crude oil prices for the latest quarter averaged double what they did one year ago.

Earnings are expected to look like this for the top five players:

1) XOM.N – Exxon to earn over $12 billion in earnings for the quarter
2) RDSa.L – Royal Dutch Shell expected to top $8.3 billion for the quarter
3) BP.L – BP should net $7.7 billion

Yes, these are the highest ever recorded profits for these three companies. It’s fair to say the higher price we’re all paying at the pump is immensely helping the bottom line at this Big Oil behemoths.

Starbucks Closing 600 Stores

02. July 2008 · Comments Off · Categories: Stock Highlight · Tags: ,

Starbucks (SBUX) has announced they’re closing 600 stores nationwide and laying off 12,000 workers in an effort to boost profitability. It’s a sign that America’s insatiable thirst for overpriced coffee has a limit, especially when gas costs over $4 per gallon. With a Starbucks already on every corner, the Seattle-based company has been forced to do a reality check about their operations.

The 12,000 workers who are losing their jobs represent 7% of Starbuck’s global workforce.

Investors seem to be applauding the decision. The stock has risen steadily since the decision was made.

The growth of Starbucks has been criticized by many analysts. If you’ve traveled to Las Vegas in recent years, you couldn’t help but notice that there are Starbucks locations everywhere you turn. This is true in many other cities, as well. The closures will cost the company $348 million.

Starbucks isn’t dumping the idea of growth, though.

“We believe we still have opportunities to open new locations with strong returns on capital,” CFO Pete Bocian said.

Verizon Talking To Alltel About $27 Billion Buyout

04. June 2008 · Comments Off · Categories: Stock Highlight · Tags: ,

Verizon is considering a buyout of Alltell for $27 billion. Alltell was taken private in November of 2008 by TPG and Goldman Sachs Capital Partners for roughly the same price. It doesn’t look like the private equity firms will make a huge profit, but would still make somewhere near $1/2 billion for their efforts.

Verizon (NYSE: vz) seems likely to pay no more than did TPG and Goldman, and will be doing so for a company that has increased its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (Ebitda) by 10 percent since the leveraged buyout was announced last may.

Verizon is expected to pay roughly 8 times Alltel’s current Ebitda, in contrast to the 9.2 times Ebitda that TPG and Goldman paid last year when they put in roughly $4.6 billion of equity and lined up $23.8 billion of debt financing to get the deal done.

When Alltel was taken private, it was an easier time for companies to get credit. Since credit has become tighter, the buyers felt they needed to get out in favor of Verizon who can put the necessary investment in Alltel to make the deal work.

The original investors are said to be happy to get out while the getting is good and make some easy money for their efforts.

GM Shares Hit 27 Year Low

27. May 2008 · Comments Off · Categories: Stock Highlight · Tags:

GM and Ford shares took a hit today, with GM shares reduced to a new 27 year low. The reason is obvious. The North American auto market is the world’s largest and is in the throes of an off year. Japanese auto makers have already reduced estimates for 2008, and so have GM and Ford.

GM and Ford last lived fat in the early part of the decade, when consumers (who were lucky to have such low gas prices) starting eating up gas-guzzling models that the companies made huge profits on. Now, consumers are faced with tight credit and record high gas prices. Of course they’re opting to buy smaller cars, and many less of them.

Shares hit intraday prices of $16.87, a low that hasn’t been achieved since 1981. Ford fared slightly better, but is down over 3% today.

Until gas prices lessen rapidly, the outlook for GM for 2008 is not rosy.

Brian Gladden New Dell CFO

19. May 2008 · Write a comment · Categories: Stock Highlight · Tags: , ,

Brian Gladden has been named the new CEO of Dell.

Brian Gladden will take over on June 13th, when Don Carty, who he is replacing steps down.

Gladden is joining Dell (nasdaq: DELL – news – people ) as a senior vice president on Tuesday. He most recently served as president and chief executive officer of SABIC Innovative Plastics Holding BV, which is the former GE Plastics.

Carty has been a member of Dell’s board since 1992.

Dell shares closed Friday at $21.31. The stock is down about 13.1% since the start of 2008.

Dell has been dealing with slowing revenue growth in recent years.

Google Suprises With 30% Increase In Q1

17. April 2008 · Write a comment · Categories: Stock Highlight · Tags: , ,

People had been selling off Google in the past few weeks, on speculation that the company’s ad program was not performing as well as last year. These people must be surprised today to learn that Google ended up 30% over last year’s earnings.

Google leader Eric Schmidt cooed about the company’s prowess. “It’s clear we are well positioned for 2008 and beyond, regardless of the business environment we are surrounded by,” said Schmidt.

Revenue was $5.19 billion, up 42 percent from 2007′s $3.66 billion. Earnings were $1.31 billion, or $4.12 per share, for the first three months of 2008, compared with $1 billion, or $3.18 per share, in the first quarter of 2007.

Google’s shares immediately rallied almost 18% on the news.

IBM Suspension

04. April 2008 · Write a comment · Categories: Stock Highlight · Tags:

The IBM Suspension for bidding on contracts has been lifted. The suspension was put in place by the EPA and has been in force for for one week.

The suspension was put in place after an EPA debarring official received information that supported allegations that IBM employees had received source selection information from an EPA employee, according to the agreement that lifted the suspension. The document was signed Thursday by Robert Meunier, the EPA debarring official, and Richard Kaplan, vice president and assistant general counsel for IBM.

As part of the agreement, IBM has agreed to suspended five employees while the investigation continues, pull out of the procurement that sparked the controversy and pay EPA’s costs involved with a protest of that contract.

IBM is cooperating with EPA’s ongoing investigation and is conducting its own internal investigation, which it has agreed to share with the agency, according to the EPA document.

IBM hasn’t commented yet on the suspension lift.

Google Rises On Analyst Upgrade

01. April 2008 · Write a comment · Categories: Stock Highlight

Google stock hasn’t been moving up too boisterously lately, but that changed today when the stock bounced over 4% based on an upgrade by a Goldman Sachs analyst who rated the company a “BUY”.

In a note to investors, Goldman analyst James Mitchell took over primary coverage for the company with a “Buy” rating, saying the company’s plans will increase traffic over time.

He believes recent decelerations in the company’s paid click growth “reflect self-inflicted changes to improve the find-to-search ratio” and said a revenue slowdown in the fourth quarter of 2007 was “partly a reversion to trend growth rates.”

Google shares had been drifting lower based on concerns the company’s Adsense program had peaked as far as revenues and profits go.

Google Seeks To Boost Ad Revenue By Boosting Quality

31. March 2008 · Write a comment · Categories: Stock Highlight

Google has been making the bulk of their money from their Google Adsense program, and now the company is forced to recognize signs that the gravy train is slowing down. In an attempt to bolster their results, GOOG plans on making advertisers pay for few, but supposedly “higher quality” clicks.

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