MARKET CURRENTS
real-time news and commentary for investors
MARKET CURRENTS
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Today - Tuesday, June 18, 2013
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7:12 PM Amgen (AMGN) ups its stake in Cytokinetics (CYTK) to 11,909,406 shares from 3,484,806 shares reported on March 21. The increase now puts AMGN's holding at 7.58% of CYTK's outstanding float. CYTK +7.4% AH. [Healthcare, On the Move] Comment!
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7:09 PM IBM is launching a slew of cloud apps/services it says are aimed at C-Suite execs, but is light on specifics. Big Blue says its SmartCloud Solutions portfolio now offers 100+ business functions for decision-making execs such as CFOs, CMOs, procurement/supply chain officers, and HR chiefs to leverage. A new social media analytics solution for CMOs (will compete against CRM's Radian6 and ORCL''s Collective Intellect) is among them. The announcement comes on the heels of IBM's ~$2B acquisition of cloud infrastructure provider SoftLayer, which the company plans to integrate with its SmartCloud unit. [Tech] Comment!
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6:56 PM Money manager and Fox Business contributor Tobin Smith is dumped by the network following a report his firm accepts money from microcap companies to promote their stocks. Smith and friends just pocketed $50K from a stock endorsement for Petrosonic Energy (PSON.OB), a Bulletin Board company that has no revenues - "taking a bag of cash and luring the dumbest, poorest people into losses," Josh Brown says. 3 Comments
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6:50 PM Alcatel-Lucent (ALU) CEO Michel Combes will use tomorrow's strategy update to unveil plans to cut €1B ($1.34B) worth of costs, and to divest €1B worth of assets over the next 3 years (less than some investors have been hoping), Les Echos reports. Combes will also announce plans to focus on the router and mobile infrastructure markets - the former has been a bright spot for Alcatel thanks to strong edge router sales, and the latter has been faring better lately thanks to growing 4G orders. (earlier) [Tech] 1 Comment
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6:44 PM More on China Cord Blood (CO): FQ4 easily beats estimates across the board on a 33% jump in total sales. Accumulated subscriber base rose by 30.1% Y/Y. Gross margin also rose to 79.8%, from 76.6%. Shares +3.4% AH. [Healthcare, Global & FX, Earnings, On the Move] Comment!
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6:43 PM Even if the U.S. approves the Keystone pipeline (TRP), analysts say it won't be enough to sop up Canada's oil glut and would only temporarily alleviate the lack of pipeline infrastructure, meaning Canadian crude oil probably will remain the cheapest in the world. But a decision blocking Keystone would make the problem worse, reducing spending on oil sands projects by ~$9.4B during 2014-17. [Energy] Comment!
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6:39 PM Mellanox (MLNX) responds to a shareholder vote forcing CEO Eyal Waldman to give up the role of chairman by naming lead director Irwin Federman its new chairman. Federman is a partner at VC firm U.S. Venture Partners, and also serves on SanDisk and Check Point Software's boards. Also: Mellanox boasts the number of systems on the TOP500 supercomputer list using its FDR InfiniBand hardware has risen 3.3x over the last year, and that 205 of the systems uses InfiniBand. [Tech] Comment!
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6:19 PM Agilent (A) announces and prices a $600M offering of senior notes due July 2023; they carry a yield of 3.875%, and have been rated BBB+ by Fitch. Agilent says it will use the proceeds to pay down debt due next month, as well as for restructuring expenses and buybacks. The test equipment giant had $2.36B in debt as of April 30, and $2.64B in cash/investments. [Tech] Comment!
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6:07 PM Red Hat (RHT +2.1%) rallied ahead of tomorrow's FQ1 report after SA Pro contributor/former hedge fund analyst Josh Burwick offered a bull case, and Piper made cautiously optimistic remarks. Burwick argues fears about the impact of Amazon Web Services on Red Hat are overblown, that slowing billings growth is offset by major growth in unbilled revenue, and that newly-announced OpenStack cloud infrastructure and app platform offerings should fare well. Piper says checks indicate FQ1 billings could be light, but adds Red Hat will make up for it in FQ2, and sees shares bottoming in the $40s. [Tech, On the Move, Quick Ideas] Comment!
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6:03 PM Biodel (BIOD) is trading lower in the post session after announcing a public offering to sell an undisclosed number of shares with a 30-day option on an additional 15% to cover overallotments, if any. Shares -8.2% AH. [Healthcare, On the Move] Comment!
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6:00 PM On the hour: S&P +0.05%. 10-yr flat. Euro +0.01% vs. dollar. Crude +0.19% to $98.82. Gold +0.03% to $1367.45. Comment!
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5:56 PM Vale (VALE) shares advanced today after Brazil's government unveiled a long-awaited bill to reform the country's mining code, proposing new royalties of up to 4%, double the current rate, and a new mine regulatory agency. The new rules were expected, but investors had been holding back on buying shares for fear they might turn out worse. [Commodities] Comment!
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5:46 PM Facebook's (FB) monthly active advertiser base is now above 1M, the social networking giant boasts. Though impressive, that figure still suggests only a small portion of the 16M local businesses that have set up Facebook pages are buying ads. Facebook is hoping to reel in more clients in part by streamlining its ad offerings, creating more mobile-friendly business pages, and giving advertisers more data on its users' non-Facebook activity. BIA Kelsey estimates over half of U.S. small businesses promote themselves via Facebook, and 16% buy ads. [Tech] 1 Comment
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5:41 PM Canada hikes the liability cap for oil spills in Atlantic and Arctic waters to C$1B, up from the respective $30M and $40M limits under existing rules. The changes deal only with offshore activity, which is poised to accelerate as companies begin assessing prospective new fields on the East and Arctic coasts. [Energy] 1 Comment
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5:27 PM In a strategy shift, Nvidia (NVDA) is offering to license its Kepler GPU architecture, as well as "visual computing" IP, to other chipmakers looking to power mobile hardware. Kepler serves as the foundation for much of Nvidia's PC/workstation GPU lineup, as well the GPU within its next-gen Tegra 5 (Logan) processor. Nvidia's move puts it into competition with GPU core licensing leader Imagination (IGNMF.PK), and also ARM's (ARMH) fast-growing Mali GPU core business. Potential licensees include Qualcomm (uses home-grown GPUs), Intel (ditto), Apple (Imagination client), and Samsung (Imagination and Mali client). Tough competition for Tegra may have influenced Nvidia's decision. [Tech] 2 Comments
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5:24 PM Long-term care provider AdCare Health Systems (ADK) says the NYSE has approved its plan to regain compliance with the exchange's continued listing standards was accepted. The NYSE granted until July 16, an extension for the company to regain compliance with respect to the Annual Report, and until August 15 for its 10-Q. Shares +1.7% AH. [Healthcare, On the Move] Comment!
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5:20 PM TransCanada (TRP), which says Keystone XL will be the safest pipeline ever built, isn’t planning to use infrared sensors or fiber-optic cables to detect spills along the system’s 2,000-mile path to Texas refineries from fields in Alberta, Bloomberg reports. The pipeline would have to be spilling more than 12K bbl/day before its currently planned internal spill-detection systems would trigger an alarm. [Energy] 4 Comments
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