Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Communicate.com - The old dot com

Years ago, Communicate.com (CMNN.OB) was a tiny company trading for as little as 5 cents per share. But they had one thing going for them- a superb portfolio of generic dot com domain names. the fortunes of the company started to turn in 2003, when pay per click advertising made their legacy domain names cash cows.

Today, the company trades at over $2.50 per share and is seeking to shift gears.
Instead of using the domain names for simple pay per click landing pages like boxing.com, the company has started developing the domain names into retail or business websites like perfume.com or importers.com. This has boosted revenue, but contracted margins. They reported a small net loss in the most recent quarter.

They have stated ambitions of building up a portfolio of popular websites on popular domain names around health, sports, and travel (video interview). Even if this doesn't work, the value of the underlying assets remains. Recent sales of dictionary.com and business.com keep things in close perspective.

EMC - VMware IPO likes it's 1999

EMC's (EMC) VMware unit is now set for August 14 at an expected range of $23- $25 per share.

TheStreet.com covers some of the forth.

Disclosure: I am long EMC.

IndyMac - Conditions uncertain, declares dividend

IndyMac (IMB) reported earnings this morning. Revenue declined 21% and earnings declined 57%. Loan production declined 12% as they became "less aggressive" on bids for new business. One of the only bright spots was their reverse mortgage business which earned $18.8 million versus an anticipated loss of $12 million.

They declined to issue guidance due to "significant current uncertainties in the housing and mortgage markets." They did however declare their quarterly dividend of 50 cents per share, now an annualized 9% yield until they stop paying it.

The stock price has declined 52% this year.

Monday, July 30, 2007

Heelys - Fad stock already out of fashion?

Heelys (HLYS) makes shoes with wheels in heel. Lean back and you can start to roll. Unfortunately, the stock hasn't been on a roll.

The stock IPO'd in late 2006 and shares started trading above $30. After reaching $40 per share the stock has recently fallen to $22. Other "shoe fad" stocks have performed phenomenally over the same time period. Crocs (CROX) moved from the $20's to the $50's. Deckers (DECK), maker of UGG Boots, moved from $60 to over $100.

Heelys has a similar phenomenal growth story as its "shoe fad" peers, with revenue which tripled over last year and profits which quintupled. So where does Heelys differ?

Heelys insiders recently attempted to sell 8 million shares (the offering was later withdrawn). The company receives negative press, recently cited as causing 1,600 injuries, mostly for children who use their wheeled shoes. The company is utterly dependent on the same wheeled shoes for 98% of revenues. Their product is aimed mainly towards children, probably more fickle than the target demographic of Crocs or UGG Boots.

Verizon - The wireless customer race

Verizon (VZ) reported earnings this morning as well as the acquisition of Rural Cellular Corporation.

Verizon has been neck and neck with AT&T Wireless in terms of total wireless customers. The exclusive iPhone deal with Apple is expected to push AT&T ahead. Is Verizon's response to gain customers through acquisition?

For the second quarter, AT&T ended with 63.7 million wireless customers, after adding 1.5 million during the quarter. This quarter only included the first two days of iPhone activations.

Verizon ended with 62.1 million wireless customers, after adding 1.3 million net additions. The acquisition will add another 700,000 customers, putting Verizon less than 1 million behind AT&T.

Disclosure: I am long AT&T

Radioshack - What is a "radioshack" anyway?

Radioshack (RSH) reported second quarter earnings today. They swung to a profit despite a 15% decline in revenues and a 9% decline in same store sales.

Bafflingly, the stock price has managed to roughly double since May, despite crumbling fundamentals worthy of this Onion send up.

Sunday, July 29, 2007

Internap- Barron's says they have an edge on Akamai

Earlier in the week when Akamai's (AKAM) share price was crushed, I remarked that part of the reason was competition.

This weekend Barron's said the same, but gave an edge to upstart Internap (INAP). Summary here.

While CDN only represents about 10% of Internap revenues, they are forecasting 30% earnings growth. They have an edge on Akamai and Limelight since their proprietary software that allows them to guarantee 100% content delivery.

Friday, July 27, 2007

EMC - Lining up for VMware

This morning Cisco announced that it will puchase a $150 million stake of VMware common shares. After the IPO Cisco will own approximately 1.6% of the company.

Earlier in the month Intel had announced an investment of $218 million in VMware for a 2.5% stake in the company.

This is an indication of the strong demand for the upcoming partial IPO of VMware towards the end of hte summer. EMC is planning to sell about 10% of its shares to the public.

EMC originally acquired VMware in 2004 for $625 million.

Disclosure: I am long EMC

Google - Cringely on Google, Google on Crack

Cringely's analysis on Google's (GOOG) intention to bid at least $4.6 billion on wireless spectrum.

He believes that Google doesn't really want to win the spectrum, just try to impose its own rules on the eventual winners- the mobile telcos. Cringley's believes that when the mobile telcos eventually win the auction, they will not look favorably on Google's actions.

Remember what happened last time Google ruffled the feathers of an entrenched incumbent in a sector outside of its cozy internet advertising business?

Google tried to promote its checkout service which competes against Ebay's paypal. Ebay responded by pulling all of its ads from Google's network.

Thursday, July 26, 2007

Level 3 - Cramer's top speculative pick for 2007 goes thud

Level 3 Communications (LVLT), Cramer's top speculative pick for 2007, fell over 12% today after delivering disappointing earnings and guidance.

His other top speculative picks RAD and SVNT haven't been doing so hot either.

Akamai - You had a bad day

Akamai (AKAM) was trading down as much as 10 points after reporting results and getting several subsequent downgrades.

The problem? Competition. Several notable rivals have emerged over the past few years, such as Limelight, Internap, and even Level3. Akami has been increasing capital spending and watching its traditionally rich margins contract. They will continue to grow and profit, but I think the salad days are over.

ADA-ES - Outlines comprehensive plans for shareholder dilution

ADA-ES (ADES) used to have a great little business. They provided services to reduce mercury emissions from coal fired power plants. Primarily they provided their expertise and experience. Equipment manufacturing and activated carbon were handled through partnerships. It was a nice high margin, low overhead business.

They have recently turned their ambitions to capturing more of the value chain.

Today they announced plans to construct a new activated carbon production plant. They expect to raise up to $260 Million debt and equity financing to construct. The market cap of the company is currently around $80 million. No matter how they raise the funds, it will represent significant dilution for existing shareholders who will also be left with a completely transformed company.

Rather than owning a cash-rich company with a high margins and profitability, they will own a cash-poor company with high capex, debt service costs, and profitability to be determined.

RH Donnelley - The return of dot com

RH Donnelley (RHD) has purchased Business.com for a reported $360 Million.

Business.com brings in about $15 Million dollars a year in revenue. More importantly, it is one of the world's best domain names. This considerably ups the $100 Million dollar price tag for dictionary.com, recently acquired by Answers.com.

Reportedly Dow Jones and the New York Times were also bidding on the company.

Business.com was purchased in 1999 for $7.5 Million
. At the time it was the most highly publicized domain name sale ever. It later went on to be highly ridiculed as indicative of the irrational prices being paid for domain names.

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Orbitz - Ticker symbol says OWW, Investors agree

With a ticker symbol like "OWW" how could investors resist? Very easily.

A brief history of Orbitz: originally funded by money losing airlines. IPO. Acquired by Cendant. Sold to private equity. re-IPO'ed last week. The newly minted stock went public below its expected range and has fallen further still.

The company sports a pile of debt and a negative book value.

Nominated by GigaOM as the worst IPO of the year before it even happened.

Related "OWW" coverage from Fool, alarm:clock, and Portfolio.

Apple - Still sells computers

Apple (AAPL) reported third quarter results after market close.

iPhone sales for the last two days of the quarter were well below expectations at only 270,000 units. Some were predicting as many as 700,000 units.

The market was quick to overlook since Apple shipped 1,764,000 computers for the quarter, an increase of 33%, and 9,815,000 ipods, an increase of 21%.

Earnings rose 73%. The stock was trading up after hours.

I guess Fake Steve was right.

Indymac Bancorp - Alt-A the next Subprime?

IndyMac Bancorp (IMB) stock has been taking a beating on concerns about Alt-A mortgages.

"Alt-A" mortgages are between prime and subprime loans. While Alt-A loans are supposedly less risky, often little documentation is required to substantiate the borrower's income level. As sub prime loan defaults and delinquencies continue to rise, many fear that the crisis will spread to the next rung of the ladder.

IndyMac is down nearly 50% year to date, recently shedding another 2 points following results from Countrywide. Is the reaction over done?

While IndyMac is one of the countries largest Alt-A originators, it also has stable thrift bank operations and is a market leader in popular and profitable reverse mortgages. Can the strength in these two areas outweigh any coming weakness in Alt-A?

Second quarter results are on July 31. Expect lots of questions and commentary on the state of Alt-A.

Amazon.com - Flashback

Amazon (AMZN) delivered a stellar quarter after market close yesterday. Shares are expected to be up huge today and even provide a boost to the broader indexes. But who remembers last year?

Let's flash back to the second quarter of 2006. Earnings and guidance disappointed. Analysts worried that Amazon was over-investing in technology with no payback on the horizon. Shares fell below $30, at the time a 3 year low.

Well here is the pay back and then some. Today shares are likely to see a 7 year high.

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

UAL- Airlines can earn profits

UAL parent of United Airlines(UAUA) reported a quarterly profit. Revenue rose 2.1% to $5.11 billion. Second quarter profit was $274 million of $1.83 per share.

This represents UAL's largest profit in 7 years. The company emerged from a 3 year bankruptcy in 2006.

McDonald's- Second time around

McDonald's (MCD) released quarterly earnings and reported its second ever quarterly loss.

The first time McDonald's posted a quarterly loss was the fourth quarter of 2002. At the time sales were slipping and $435 pre-tax charges pushed them into the red. This proved to be a low point for the stock. Shares have rallied over 400% since then.

This time around, the loss was caused by a $1.6 billion one time charge. Behind the headline the company delivered 12% revenue growth and 7.4% comparable store sales growth.

AT&T - Connecting some iPhone dots

AT&T (T) reported quarterly earnings today and also provided some color on the first two days of iPhone sales. AT&T is the exclusive provider of wireless service for the iPhone in the US.

In the final two days of the quarter AT&T activated 146,000 iPhone subscribers, 40% of whom were new AT&T customers. They indicated that "sales of iPhones continue to be strong in July."

Disclosure: I am long AT&T

EMC- A company transformed

EMC (EMC) released quarterly results before market open. Revenue rose 21% and quarterly profit increased to 16 cents a share compared to 12 cents per share a year earlier. VMware was once again a bright spot, posted 89% revenue growth. EMC expects the highly anticipated partial IPO to be complete this summer.

EMC has performed exceptionally over the past year with shares up nearly 100%. How did EMC regain its luster?

Back in 2000, EMC derived 74% of its revenue from hardware, 16% from software and 11% from storage. This led to a very hard crash and over 1 billion dollars of losses when the market for hardware dried up.

Today it's 43% hardware, 41% software, and 18% services. They pulled this off with a string of acquisitions including VMware which was purchased back in 2003. Software and services have been driving the revenue and profit growth. EMC offers several best of breed software solutions like Documentum and VMware. Software and services deliver higher margins and make EMC more entrenched within their customers entire information life cycle.

This was always the plan for CEO Joe Tucci. Shareholders are now seeing the payoff.

Disclosure: I am long EMC

Monday, July 23, 2007

Netflix- The other kind of Blockbuster quarter

Netflix (NFLX) shares fell 12% after announcing price cuts on subscriptions. After market close they also released quarterly results and a net subscriber decline.

Why the decline? Not internet movie downloads, but competition from Blockbuster. After years of playing down the threat of Netflix, Blockbuster finally came up with a competitive DVD rental by mail service. They copied Netflix's model and improved on it. If you don't feel like waiting for the next movie to show up in the mail, just bring your movie to a Blockbuster outlet. Netflix, without a bricks and mortar presence, can't offer the same. All they can do is cut their prices.

Merck- what Vioxx?

Merck (MRK) was recently up over 8% following strong quarterly results and a raised forecast.

The stock is now up over 100% since the Vioxx events of late 2004.

Tellabs - Fighting merger with merger

A while back I took a look at Tellabs (TLAB). I decided that they were overly dependent on a small number of customers. There customer base had also consolidated considerably over the past few years, which should pressure margins.

Reportedly, Nokia Siemens made a take-over bid for Tellabs for $16 to $17 per share. Part of the rationale was that by consolidating equipment vendors, they would regain pricing power over their consolidated customer base.

Apple - The 2 day quarter

Apple (AAPL) will report quarterly earning on Wednesday, but most closely scrutinized will be the final two days of the quarter.

The highly anticipated iphone went on sale for the final 48 hours of of the second quarter. While iphone sales will contribute virtually no revenue or profits for the quarter (revenue recognized over 2 year mobile contract), everyone will be using the numbers to extrapolate the value of Apple unto infinity.

It should be remembered that their company-life altering device the ipod sold only 125,000 units from release on October 23, 2001 to December 31, 2001.

Wall Street expects Apple to have sold 700,000 iphones in only 48 hours.

When the ipod was launched, Apple was a stock valued at little more than the cash on its balance sheet. No one was expecting anything. Now Apple is in the unenviable position of having to live up to increasingly wildly optimistic expectations. Never an easy thing to do.

Watch for the 2 day quarter on July 25.

Sunday, July 22, 2007

Vonage - Fifth wheel loses a leg

Vonage (VG) reached a new all time low this week. This comes as competitor SunRocket suddenly ceased operations.

Voip-only providers are the fifth leg of the telecommunications industry. In order to use their services, you must have a broadband internet connection. You would generally get broadband internet service from your cable or telephone company, who usually offer voip telephone service. Most offer this as part of a package, with rates competitive to even the most aggresive voip-only provider.

Why does Vonage exist? They must still have some IPO money left over.

Saturday, July 21, 2007

Answers.com - How to spend in excess of your market cap

Earlier this week Answers.com (ANSW) announced the acquisition of Lexico for $100 million in cash. At the time of the announcement this acquisition price was slightly greater than Answers.com's market cap.

Lexico operates websites at dictionary.com, thesaurus.com, and reference.com. Because Lexico generates minimal revenues, many are basically calling this an asset acquisition.

Other public companies who purchased a domain name to build a business around?

Local.com purchased its domain name for $700,000 in 2005.

Web.com bought its domain name and a hosting customer base for $4.4 million in 2006.

On the flip side, Odimo sold its headline domain name diamond.com for $7.5 million in 2006.

Intersearch Group
is an entire company built around monetizing domain names like banks.com, look.com and irs.com. It looks like they spent about $13 million on their domain names.

Friday, July 20, 2007

Imax- Filing your financial statements is good for your stock price

Imax (IMAX) files restated financials for 2002-2005 and finally files it 2006 10-K and 2007 First Quarter 10-Q.

Results in the first quarter were slightly less dismal than expected. Stock price responds with nearly 10% gain. On the conference call Imax emphasized the prior 3 strong movie releases- 300, Spiderman, and Harry Potter. They also outlined some of the conversion to digital plans.

Bottom line, Imax has a great technology that continues to provide a meaningful boost for blockbuster type movies. They need to figure out how to make this work for them financially.

Notably over 17% of the float is short. 100 oz. Silver bars

Disclosure: I am long IMAX.

Google- Spending like crazy reduces profits

Google (GOOG) stock price falls after disappointing earnings.

Revenue growth continues unabated at 58% over second quarter of 2006. Earnings growth disappoints.

I have said for a while that Google's rampant spending to develop new products with no significant revenue potential would catch up to them some day. Last time I checked, 99% of Google's revenues came from internet advertising despite several billion dollar acquisitions.

The new plan? Spend up to 4.6 billion for wireless spectrum.

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