From Briefing.com: 8:01AM Applied Materials estimates trimmed, tgt raised at Morgan Stanley (AMAT) 21.00: Morgan Stanley believes OctQ is tracking to guidance. However, based on major fab ramp schedules suggesting March/April equipment installation, end of yr shutdowns and an early Lunar New Year, firm feels it was likely to aggressive with its JanQ rev est. Consequently, firm has pushed-out its rev ramp forecasts by one qtr. Firm's new Q1 rev est is $1.23 bln, down from $1.3 bln and slightly below consensus of $1.25 bln. Firm raising its price tgt from $21 to $25 or roughly 40x earnings, within historical range of 20-50x forward earnings on recovering fundamentals, but still quite expensive, says firm.
9:04AM Nokia upgraded at Fulcrum (NOK) 17.26: Fulcrum upgrades to Buy from Neutral due to a more positive outlook for the mobile phone industry; firm raises their 2004 phone sales est to 200 mln from 182 mln (implying 40.4% mkt share), and expects a 2.6% annual decline in avg selling prices vs their prior est of a 4.0% decline due to a higher mix of color screen and camera phones; also, firm believes the near-term impact to ASPs and margins expected in Q3 is a temporary move by NOK to gain mkt share ahead of a potential acceleration in the mobile phone industry. Target is $24.
8:18AM NVIDIA estimates reduced at Morgan Stanley (NVDA) 16.90: Firm reducing estimates on view that Xbox-based shipments will see a sharper seasonal decline in the JanQ and to reflect a more conservative stance for co's PC-based revs. Firm reduces 2004 to $0.52 from $0.60 and 2005 to $0.90 from $1.00... (Briefing.com note: Both estimates remain above Reuters Research consensus of $0.49 and $0.70).
7:56AM Lehman downgrades large-cap E&P stocks : Lehman lowers their sector rating for the large-cap Exploration & Production stocks to Negative from Positive, saying near-record natural gas storage injection levels should allow storage levels to catch up to historical avgs by mid-Oct, which could lead natural gas prices to fall sharply. Downgrades BR, DVN, and EOG to Equal-Weight from Overweight, and downgrades ECA to Underweight from Equal-Weight; firm also upgrades TLM to Overweight from Equal-Weight based on improved near-term production growth outlook, their shift away from North American gas-levered names (about 35% of TLM`s production is North American gas), and attractive relative valuation.
7:51AM Jacobs Engineering inks two new contracts with ExxonMobil (JEC) 49.25: Co receives two contracts from an affiliate of ExxonMobil to provide engineering, procurement, and construction management services on selected projects in Europe. One five-year agreement includes sites in the Benelux Region, and the other includes Benelux and additional sites in France, Germany, Italy, and the UK. No dollar amount was given.
7:50AM Merrill resumes coverage of Storage names BRCD, MCDTA, NTAP, QLGC, STK, VRTS : Merrill Lynch resumes coverage of BRCD with a Sell rating with a theoretical fair value around $5. Firm resumes coverage of Storage names MCDTA, NTAP, QLGC, STK and VRTS with Neutral ratings.
7:49AM Amgen downgraded at AG Edwards (AMGN) 67.14: AG Edwards downgrades to Hold from Buy based on their belief that the shares face increasing headwinds (non-recurring growth in 3 franchise drugs, reimbursement risk, competition from Roche's CERA, patent erosion) and will likely perform in-line with the biotech indices; to preserve its multiple, firm estimates that AMGN will need to find an additional 10% growth per year, or $1.2 bln in sales in 2006 and then increasing amounts each year thereafter, and they have difficulty coming up with where those sales will come from.
7:47AM C-COR.net raises guidance (CCBL) 7.01: Says it achieved profitablity in Q3 (Sept), Reuters consensus called for a loss of $0.04; company sees Q3 revs of $56 mln, consensus $54 mln.
7:27AM EMC Corp guides up following Documentum merger announcement (EMC) 14.45: Company issues upside preannouncement for Q3 (Sep), sees EPS of.$0.05, ex $0.02 tax gain, vs Reuters consensus of $0.04, on revenues of $1.51 bln, consensus $1.49 bln
7:21AM Echelon beats prior guidance (ELON) 13.43: Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.11 per share, exceeding company EPS guidance of $0.07 to $0.09 (no consensus as there is no coverage on the stock). Excluding certain charges associated with acquisitions completed in prior periods, non-GAAP EPS was $0.14. Revenues declined 8.0% year/year to $30.7 mln.
7:15AM Avid Tech downgraded at Piper Jaffray (AVID) 58.79: Piper Jaffray downgrades to Mkt Perform from Outperform, saying channel feedback leads them to expect in-line performance in Q3 and Q4, while they believe the Street has priced AVID for outperformance. Target is $55.
finance.yahoo.com |
