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Davy - Fri, 05/25/2012 - 08:08

Opportunities in the UK petroleum products market that need not be covered in snow

Categories: Ireland

Much Ado About Nothing

seekalpha - 6 hours 35 sec ago

567 million shares of Facebook (FB) changed hands today — that’s more than the total number of shares issued — at a volume-weighted average price of just over $40 per share. To put it another way, the whopping move from the IPO price of $38.00 to the closing price of $38.23 came with more than $22 billion of trading activity, and undoubtedly left the underwriting banks with rather more Facebook stock on their books than they had been hoping for. But that’s what it means to be an underwriter.

For anybody disappointed that they didn’t get their full initial allocation of stock, or who thinks that small retail investors can’t buy into IPOs at the same price that large institutional investors can, this is great news: Monday’s going to be a do-over, with everybody being able to buy Facebook stock at the IPO price.

This of course helps to point

Categories: invest ideas

Earnings Day Gains Wiped Out, And Then Some

seekalpha - 6 hours 35 sec ago

Over at Bespoke Premium, we have just published our multi-page earnings season wrap-up report. In the report we highlighted that the average stock declined 0.47% on its report day this past earnings season, which is a pretty negative reading. Even more depressing is how poorly stocks have done since they reported. The average stock is now down 8.07% since the close on its report day. And it's not like just the companies that had bad reports have gone down. Even the companies that had the best reports have cratered.

Below is a list of the 42 S&P 500 stocks that went up more than 5% on their report days this season. For each stock, we also show how it has done since its close following its 5%+ move. As shown, the average stock that gained more than 5% on its report day has averaged a decline of 10% since then!

Categories: invest ideas

Facebook Strikes A Discordant Note

seekalpha - 6 hours 35 sec ago

The big news today was Facebook's (FB) tremendously hyped initial public offering. It did not turn out as the underwriters had hoped. First, Nasdaq could not open the stock at its scheduled 11AM first trade, which finally came about a half-hour later. Large numbers of investors then could not get trade confirmations and did not know throughout the day whether they had purchased the stock or at what price. While Facebook's 573 million share trading volume was extremely active, the exchanges have dealt with greater volume than that in the past.

The stock came to market at $38 per share. The first reported trade was at 42.05, about a 10% premium. Twenty minutes later the stock had given up that gain and for another seven minutes it traded at or just above the 38 offering price. The underwriters were forced to commit large amounts of capital to keep the stock

Categories: invest ideas

Advanced Salesforce Iron Condor Trade Alert

seekalpha - 6 hours 35 sec ago

Strategic Mindset: Market Neutral with possibilities of Surges in Volatility.

Target: Salesforce (CRM) trading @ $147.83

Commit Criteria: CRM Implied Volatility is overpriced relative to its forecast volatility of 9.81% over the trade period. We are looking for possible price movement but for it to stay within its $130.00 to $165.00 price range until the exit of this trade.

Tactic: Opening 10 CRM June 2012 Iron Condors (strikes [125/130/165/170]) for a $1.15 credit

Tactical Employment of Iron Condor:

- Buying to Open 10 CRM Jun 2012 $170.00 Calls
- Selling to Open 10 CRM Jun 2012 $165.00 Calls
- Selling to Open 10 CRM Jun 2012 $130.00 Puts
- Buying to Open 10 CRM Jun 2012 $125.00 Puts
- Net Credit: $115.00 per Iron Condor for a total of $1150.00
- Max Gain: $1150.00
- Max Risk: -$385.00 per Iron Condor for a total risk of -$3850.00

Mid-Course Guidance:

We

Categories: invest ideas

Schiff Nutrition International's CEO Presents at Bank of America Merrill Lynch 2012 Health Care Conference (Transcript)

seekalpha - 6 hours 35 sec ago

Schiff Nutrition International, Inc. (WNI)

Bank of America Merrill Lynch 2012 Health Care Conference Call

May 16, 2012 6:40 pm ET

Executives

Tarang Amin – President and Chief Executive Officer

Joseph W. Baty – Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Presentation

Unidentified Analyst

Okay. My name is (inaudible) I work with Gregg Gilbert. I’m the specialty pharmaceuticals in U.S. Major Pharmaceuticals team. I’m happy to present to you, Schiff Nutrition, this is Tarang Amin, CEO; and also Executive Vice President and CFO, Joe Baty.

Tarang Amin

Thanks. Good afternoon. My pleasure to give you a little bit of an overview on Schiff Nutrition and then Joe and I’ll then answer any of your questions. For those of you who are not familiar, Schiff has actually got a 75 year history of delivering high quality nutritional supplement with a rich heritage (inaudible) first brand in this space, and a great

Categories: invest ideas

Varian Medical's CEO Presents at Bank of America Merrill Lynch Healthcare Conference Call (Transcript)

seekalpha - 6 hours 35 sec ago

Varian Medical Systems, Inc. (VAR)

Bank of America Merrill Lynch Health Care Conference Call

May 15, 2012 04:00 pm ET

Executives

Elisha W. Finney – Corporate Executive Vice President, Finance and Chief Financial Officer

Spencer R. Sias – Vice President, Corporate Communications and Investor Relations

Analysts

Presentation

Unidentified Analyst

[Call Starts Abruptly]

Analyst at B of A. And here with me from Varian, we have Elisha Finney, the CFO, and Spencer Sias, the Head of Investor Relations. Elisha's is going to go ahead and speak for 15 minutes or so, and then we will open it up for Q&A.

Elisha W. Finney

Thank you, [Lenux]. What we thought we would do is just give a brief summary this afternoon and then make sure we leave time to answer any questions that you might have. I will be making some forward-looking statements. Varian's mission is focusing energy on saving lives. And

Categories: invest ideas

Genworth Finanancial's CEO Hosts Annual Shareholder Meeting Conference (Transcript)

seekalpha - 6 hours 35 sec ago

Genworth Financial, Inc. (GNW)

Annual Shareholder Meeting Conference Call

May 17, 2012 09:00 am ET

Executives

James S. Riepe – Former Vice Chairman of T. Rowe Price Group, Inc.

Leon E. Roday – Senior Vice President, General Counsel & Secretary

Martin P. Klein – Acting President and Acting Chief Executive Officer; Senior Vice President – Chief Financial Officer

Presentation

James S. Riepe

Good morning everybody. My name is Jim Riepe, I’m the Non-Executive Chair of the Board of Directors of Genworth Financial. In accordance with our bylaws, I’m going to preside over the meeting this morning with Leon Roday, our General Counsel and Secretary. He will be Secretary of the meeting. On behalf of Genworth, it is my pleasure to welcome everybody to our 2012 Annual Meeting of stockholders.

Before we begin the business portion of the meeting, I’d like to introduce our director nominees. Genworth stockholders have the opportunity

Categories: invest ideas

Myriad Genetics' CEO Presents at Bank of America Merrill Lynch Health Care Conference (Transcript)

seekalpha - 6 hours 35 sec ago

Myriad Genetics, Inc. (MYGN)

Bank of America Merrill Lynch Health Care Conference Call

May 16, 2012 7:20 pm ET

Executives

Peter D. Meldrum – President, Chief Executive Officer and Director

Analysts

Derik de Bruin – Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Presentation

Derik de Bruin – Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Merrill Lynch 2012 Health Care Conference. I’m Derik De Bruin, the Life Sciences Tools & Diagnostics analyst. It’s my pleasure to introduce our company, Myriad Genetics. Today from Myriad we have Pete Meldrum, Chief Executive Officer and Jim Evans, Chief Financial Officer.

There will be a short presentation and a follow-up by Q&A. And with that, I’ll turn over to Pete. Pete?

Peter D. Meldrum

Thank you, Derik, and welcome to Myriad Genetics presentation. I will point out that I may be making some forward-looking statements, so please consult our Securities Filings, in particular the 10-Q and 10-K and 8-K

Categories: invest ideas

Royal Gold's Management Presents at Bank of America Merrill Lynch Global Metals, Mining & Steel Conference (Transcript)

seekalpha - 6 hours 35 sec ago

Royal Gold, Inc. (RGLD)

Bank of America Merrill Lynch Global Metals, Mining & Steel Conference Call

May 16, 2012 4:45 pm ET

Executives

Stefan L. Wenger – Chief Financial Officer

Analysts

Michael Jalonen – Bank of America/Merrill Lynch

Presentation

Michael Jalonen – Bank of America/Merrill Lynch

And continuing on in the royalty environment, very happy to have Royal Gold. Joining us from Royal Gold is, like Franco-Nevada involved more in the precious metals, gold streams and royalties. Presenting from Royal Gold is Stefan Wenger, who is the CFO and he has been in this position since 2006, but was been with Royal Gold since 2003. And Stefan Wenger without further ado, I’ll past it on to yourself.

Stefan L. Wenger

Well, good afternoon and I’d like to thank the Bank of America/Merrill Lynch for having us here at the conference today. And Mike thanks for the very nice introduction. Before

Categories: invest ideas

PMC-Sierra's Management Presents at 40th Annual JP Morgan Global Technology, Media and Telecom Conference (Transcript)

seekalpha - 6 hours 35 sec ago

PMC-Sierra, Inc. (PMCS)

40th Annual JP Morgan Global Technology, Media and Telecom Conference Call

May 16, 2012 4:10 pm ET

Executives

Michael W. Zellner – Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Analysts

Harlan Sur – JPMorgan

Presentation

Harlan Sur – JPMorgan

Good afternoon. My name is Harlan Sur, semiconductor analyst here at JPMorgan. Very pleased to have Mike Zellner, Chief Financial Officer of PMC here with us today. I’ve asked Mike to provide us with a brief overview of PMC that will be followed by a few questions from myself, and then we’ll go ahead and turn it over to the audience.

So, Mike, thank you very much for joining us today, and the floor is yours.

Michael W. Zellner

Harlan thanks. Thanks for inviting us. The conference has been good. We’ve had a lot of good one-on-ones. So, I’ll start with, just at a high level, talking about a few – the way we would like to profile the Company, and then we’ll get into some more details as Harlan said. So, we see ourselves as a

Categories: invest ideas

Hovnanian Enterprises' CEO Presents at JPMorgan Homebuilding and Building Products Conference Call (Transcript)

seekalpha - 6 hours 35 sec ago

Hovnanian Enterprises, Inc. (HOV)

JPMorgan Homebuilding and Building Products Conference Call

May 15, 2012 03:30 pm ET

Executives

Ara K. Hovnanian – Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer

J. Larry Sorsby – Chief Financial Officer, Executive VP & Director

Analysts

Michael Rehaut – Analyst, JPMorgan Securities LLC

Presentation

Michael Rehaut, Analyst, JPMorgan Securities LLC

All right. We’re going to continue with the program, if people want to find their seats. Thanks very much. We’re going to be continuing with our last couple of presentations of the day, Hovnanian Enterprises followed by MDC. We have several other homebuilders and building product companies presenting tomorrow as well. And so I encourage you to look at your programs highlighted by Lennar, Masco, some of our – still several large companies in our universe, fortune brands, not part of our universe currently, but one of the big bellwethers as well. So I encourage you

Categories: invest ideas

Lexmark Internationals' Management Presents at JPMorgan Technology, Media and Telecom Conference (Transcript)

seekalpha - 6 hours 35 sec ago

Lexmark International, Inc. (LXK)

40th Annual JPMorgan Global Technology, Media and Telecom Conference Call

May 17, 2012 8:30 am ET

Executives

John W. Gamble – Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer

Analysts

Mark Moskowitz – JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Presentation

Mark Moskowitz – JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Day three of the JPMorgan TMT conference, the 40th annual edition. So John Gamble today here is CFO of Lexmark and we’re pleased to have him with us. Appreciate it, John, for showing up.

John W. Gamble

Happy to be here.

Mark Moskowitz – JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Thank you, the interesting thing about Lexmark is that they are a printing company but they are keenly aware of some of the changing secular dynamics out in the marketplace and, as a result, have been doing some interesting stuff around diversification. So we hope to definitely talk

Categories: invest ideas

Cypress Semiconductor's Presents at JPMorgan Technology, Media and Telecom Conference (Transcript)

seekalpha - 6 hours 35 sec ago

Cypress Semiconductor Corporation (CY)

JPMorgan Technology, Media and Telecom Conference Call

May 15, 2012 10:00 am ET

Executives

Brad W. Buss – Executive Vice President, Finance and Administration and Chief Financial Officer

Analysts

Christopher B. Danely – JPMorgan

Presentation

Christopher B. Danely – JPMorgan

Next up is Cypress and this being Boston. I consider Cypress to be the Rajon Rondo of semis. They're kind of a small company. They pay one of the best yields in all of technology, not just semis. And then also have a nice balance between the slow – not the slow, but I guess if you consider semi-slow, but your sort of steady businesses that are growing nicely, combined with a nice growth business in touch.

So here today is Brad Buss, the Grand Poobah of Finance, so the CFO at Cypress. I'll kick it off just Brad; just kind of give us sort of

Categories: invest ideas

Momenta Pharmaceuticals' Management Presents at Bank of America Merrill Lynch 2012 Health Care Conference (Transcript)

seekalpha - 6 hours 35 sec ago

Momenta Pharmaceuticals, Inc.(MNTA)

Bank of America Merrill Lynch 2012 Health Care Conference Call

May 16, 2012 8:00 pm ET

Executives

Richard P. Shea – Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Analysts

Sumant S. Kulkarni – Bank America/Merrill Lynch

Presentation

Sumant S. Kulkarni – Bank America/Merrill Lynch

Good afternoon everyone. I’m very pleased to have Momenta here with us today. Thanks for taking the time and sticking around for this last presentation it’s going to be an interesting one because this is a really interesting company in the generic pharmaceuticals space. For those of you who that don’t know me I’m Sumant Kulkarni and I’m part of the specialty pharmaceuticals in U.S. major pharmaceuticals team here at the firm. So we have Rick Shea, who is the CFO and who is back with us this year and Lora Pike, who is with us for the first time this year is

Categories: invest ideas

AGNC, By The Numbers

seekalpha - 6 hours 35 sec ago

American Capital Agency Corp (AGNC) represents my largest holding, both in my taxable account and my tax-deferred account. In case you didn't know, AGNC is a real estate investment trust that owns only mortgage securities (hence, mREIT) that are guaranteed by the US Government. By opting to be taxed as a REIT, AGNC must pay out 90% of its income to investors, who benefit because its earnings taxed just once (when they receive distributions), compared to corporations who pay tax on their earnings and then pay a dividend, for which tax is then paid by the recipient.

Recently mREIT's have been getting a lot of press, with much commentary dedicated to the sustainability of their payouts. Having many of my eggs in the AGNC basket, I've spent some time running sifting through their numbers, which are laid out in a very readable fashion on their own Investors Fact Sheet.

The

Categories: invest ideas

Fed Regulation Of Non-Bank Financials Developing Very Poorly

seekalpha - 6 hours 35 sec ago

On May 17, the House Committee on Financial Services conducted a hearing, entitled either:

• "Implementing Title I of the Dodd-Frank Act: The New Regime for Regulating Systemically Important Nonbank Financial Institutions", or

• "The Impact of the Dodd-Frank Act: What It Means to be a Systemically Important Financial Institution"

The first title is from the written testimony of the Treasury's representative: the second, from the committee website. There seems to be a misunderstanding here: the Treasury's attitude is, that the regime has been implemented, and here's how it is. The committee's version seems more exploratory, a search for understanding.

The written testimony of Lance Auer, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions, U.S. Dept. of the Treasury, provides an alternate version of a previously promulgated regulation. When providing information on stage one of the process for identifying SIFI's, his version does not seem to agree with the actual regulation. Here are the

Categories: invest ideas

Billionaire Soros' Q1 High Conviction Buys In 2 Growth Stocks, Other Buys And Sells

seekalpha - 6 hours 35 sec ago

New York-based Soros Fund Management LLC, founded by George Soros in 1969 with legendary investor Jim Rogers, manages over $24 billion, including $6.84 billion in 13-F assets per its latest Q1 filing this week, on Tuesday. A frequent commentator on markets, George Soros is probably most known by his political causes and as the person who broke the Bank of England in 1992, netting himself a $1 billion profit in the process by correctly predicting that the British government would have to devalue the pound sterling. He is ranked as the 35th richest person in the world, with a net worth estimated by Forbes at $14.2 billion. An avid philanthropist, he has given away $7 billion to various causes since 1979. The fund holds a moderately diversified portfolio of over 160 positions, including 40%-45% of its holdings in large-caps, 20% in mid-caps and the remaining 35%-40% in small-cap equities.

We

Categories: invest ideas

Friday ETF Roundup: GLD Takes Another Leap, VXX Jumps Higher

seekalpha - 6 hours 35 sec ago

Today saw markets turn south as investors continue to lose confidence. The biggest story on the day was the relatively lackluster performance from Facebook (FB), as the social networking giant made its IPO. While a number of tech IPOs over the last few months have opened with stellar gains, Facebook finished the day almost entirely flat, despite trading at a volume of nearly 600 million. The S&P 500 dropped 0.7% while the Dow lost around 73 points. But no major benchmark was hit as hard as the Nasdaq, which lobbed off 1.2%.

On the commodities side of things gold continued its rally while crude oil continued to bottom out. With prices rapidly approaching $90/barrel it seems that an entry point may be days away and that technical buyers may step in to relieve the commodity of its slide. Other notable futures performances includes soybeans and sugar, which both lost over

Categories: invest ideas

Westell Technologies' CEO Discusses F4Q12 Results - Earnings Call Transcript

seekalpha - 6 hours 35 sec ago

Westell Technologies, Inc. (WSTL)

F4Q12 (Qtr End 03/31/2012) Earnings Call

May 17, 2012 9:30 am ET

Executives

Brian Cooper - CFO

Rick Gilbert - Chairman, President and CEO

Analysts

Mike Latimore - Northland Capital

Greg Burns - Sidoti & Company

Jeff Linroth - Leaving It Better

Todd Brady - Oppenheimer

Presentation

Operator

Welcome to the fourth quarter fiscal 2012 earnings conference call. (Operator Instructions) I will now turn the call over to Brian Cooper. Mr. Cooper, please go ahead.

Brian Cooper

Thank you. I want to welcome everyone to our conference call covering the annual and fourth quarter results for Westell Technologies during our fiscal year 2012, which ended March 31.

We issued our earnings news release last night as well as a new release announcing our acquisition of ANTONE Wireless. We will refer to these news releases which are our posted on our website westell.com. On this call Rick

Categories: invest ideas