Best sprint hurdlers in the world to clash in Eugene - Samsung Diamond league.

Client David Oliver ready to do battle.

Our client David Oliver prepares to do battle in Eugene June 2.

Best sprint hurdlers in the world to clash in Eugene - Samsung Diamond League.
http://www.iaaf.org/competitions/dlm/news/newsid=65054.html

Josh Gatt’s goal from the weekend.

Client Josh Gatt, Modle FC (Norway)

Our client Josh Gatt scores goal Modle FC (Norway) for 2-0 win over Sandnes.

http://www.socceroverthere.com/?p=9200

Our client Ginnie Powell-Crawford interviewed on KCPQ 13 Fox.

Our client Ginnie Powell-Crawford interviewed on KCPQ 13 Fox. http://www.q13fox.com/videogallery/70050342/Sports/Olympic-Hopeful-Ginnie-Crawford-On-Q-It-Up-Sports 

Client Ginnie Powell-Crawford prepares for Olympics

MORNING COFFEE

More Serious Problems with the Facebook IPO. 

Reports say that at least two of Facebooks’ (FB) lead underwriters revised their financial forecast for the company during the IPO road-show and shared that information with select investors.  The reports say that both Morgan Stanley (MS) and Goldman Sachs (GS) revised their financial projections for Facebook soon after the company added warnings to its IPO prospectus about how its user base is increasing more rapidly than its ad numbers. Reuters reported that JPMorgan (JPM) also revised its estimates after the news was released.

Securities regulators FINRA and the SEC are looking into whether information was released to investors on a selective basis.  If select investors learned about the revisions while Facebook and its underwriters were still pitching the deal to investors, those that were aware of the information would have been able to sell their IPO shares on Friday making a nice profit while shares were on the rise and before they began their decline. 

Since setting the IPO price of $38.00 shares of Facebook have fallen steeply.  On Friday shares opened at $42.05 and rose to $45.00 before selling off immediately and finally finding support and closing at $38.23, just above the offering price.  

Since then shares have fallen each day this week, closing yesterday at $31.00.  Today on Fox News, host Eric Bolling said that sophisticated investors he has been speaking to plan on getting back in, if shares go into the low $20.00’s. Shares are now down -26.28% from Friday’s opening price. Pre-market: 31.52 +0.52 (1.68%)

Upgrades

Applied Materials (AMAT): Goldman Sachs raised their rating from Sell to Neutral and placed a target price of $11.50 on the company. Pre-market: 10.55 +0.01 (0.09%)

Aeropostale (ARO): Imperial Capital raised their rating from In-line to Outperform and raised their target price from $22.00 to $23.00.

Blackstone Group (BX): Sterne Agee raised their rating from Neutral to Buy and placed a target price of $18.00 on the company. Pre-market: 12.01 +0.02 (0.17%)

Teradyne (TER): Goldman Sachs raised their rating from Neutral to Buy and placed a target price of $18.00 on the company. Pre-market: 14.77 +0.18 (1.23%)

Downgrades

Dell (DELL): Mizuho lowered their rating from Buy to Neutral and lowered their target price from $20.00 to $15.00. Pre-market: 13.07 -2.01 (-13.33%)

Mercer International  (MERC): Canaccord lowered their rating from Buy to Hold and placed a target price of $7.50 on the company.

Coverage Initiated

Facebook (FB): Needham initiated coverage with a Buy rating and target price of $40.00. Pre-market: 31.52 +0.52 (1.68%)

Travelers Cos. (TRV): JMP Securities initiated coverage with a Market Perform rating.

Earning Reports

Analog Devices (ADI): Reported EPS of $0.53 beating estimates by +$0.02. Pre-market: 34.65 -1.15 (-3.21%)

Compuware (CPWR): Reported EPS of $0.12 in-line with estimates.

Dell (DELL): Reported EPS of $0.43 missing estimates by -$0.03. Pre-market: 13.07 -2.01 (-13.33%)

Dycom (DY): Reported EPS of $0.28 beating estimates by +$0.07.

Guess? (GES): Reported EPS of $0.30 beating estimates by +$0.03. Pre-market: 26.02 +1.58 (6.46%)

Take-Two (TTWO): Reported EPS of -$0.60 missing estimates by -$0.05. Pre-market: 12.25 +1.09 

(9.77%)

Hormel Foods (HRL): Reported EPS of $0.48 beating estimates by +$0.07. Pre-market: 30.40 +1.21 (4.15%)

Toll Brothers (TOL): Reported EPS of $0.10 beating estimates by +$0.07. Pre-market: 27.10 +0.07 (0.26%)

Markets: 
Futures at 6:49: Dow -0.71%. S&P -0.63%. Nasdaq -0.58%. Crude -0.71% to $91.20. Gold -1.0% to $1560.90. 

Europe: London -1.84%. Paris -1.98%. Frankfurt -1.59%. 

Asia: Japan -1.98%. Hong Kong -1.33%. China -0.42%. India -0.49%. 

MORNING COFFEE

OECD Warns About Eurozone Fallout. The Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) warned that the global economic recovery is "fragile, extremely uneven across different regions and could be derailed by the crisis in the euro area" and that "we need decisive policy action now." In an announcement the OECD cut its forecast for 2012 eurozone GDP to -0.1% from +0.2%.  For the U.S. they raised their outlook to +2.4% from +2.0%.

Upgrades

Gap (GPS): Lazard Capital raised their rating from Neutral to Buy and placed a target price of $35.00 on the company. Pre-market: 26.69 +0.18 (0.68%)

Downgrades

Charles Schwab (SCHW): Raymond James lowered their rating from Market Perform to Underperform. Pre-market: 12.50 -0.16 (-1.26%)

Baker Hughes (BHI): CLSA lowered their rating from Outperform to Underperform and lowered their target price from $58.00 to $44.00. Pre-market: 41.75 -0.24 (-0.57%)

Coverage Initiated

Caribou Coffee (CBOU): Stephens initiated coverage with an Overweight rating and target price of $18.00.

Starbucks (SBUX): Stephens initiated coverage with an Overweight rating and target price of $66.00. Pre-market: 53.73 +0.03 (0.06%)

Dunkin’ Bands (DNKN): Stephens initiated coverage with an Equal Weight rating and target price of $37.00.

Anadarko Petroleum (APC): Pritchard initiated coverage with a Neutral rating and target price of $98.00.

ISIS Pharm (ISIS): Needham initiated coverage with a Buy rating and target price of $14.00. Pre-market: 9.56 +0.15 (1.59%)

Earning Reports

Urban Outfitters (URBN): Reported EPS of $0.23 beating estimates by +$0.03. Pre-market: 26.27 +0.11 (0.42%)

AutoZone (AZO): Reported EPS of $6.28 beating estimates by +$0.02. Pre-market: 357.10 -11.45 (-3.11%)

Best Buy (BBY): Reported EPS of $0.72 beating estimates by +$0.13. Pre-market: 18.40 +0.23 (1.27%)

Cracker Barrel (CBRL): Reported EPS of $0.86 beating estimates by +$0.11. Pre-market: 60.10 +1.97 (3.39%)    

       

Medtronic (MDT): Reported EPS of $0.99 beating estimates by +$0.01. Pre-market: 38.05 +0.35 (0.93%)

Polo Ralph Lauren (RL): Reported EPS of $0.99 beating estimates by +$0.02. Pre-market: 155.50 +9.20 (6.29%)

Williams-Sonoma (WSM): Reported EPS of $0.34 beating estimates by +$0.02. Pre-market: 35.68 +0.95 (2.74%)

Markets: 
Futures at 8:55: Dow -0.06%. S&P +0.03%. Nasdaq 0.00%. Crude -0.43% to $92.17. Gold -0.77% to $1576.70. 

Europe: London +1.12%. Paris +1.04%. Frankfurt +1.02%. 

Asia: Japan +1.10%. Hong Kong +0.62%. China +1.07%. India -0.97%. 

Facebook Shares Suffer Steep Loss.

After a less than spectacular first day of trading on Friday, today Facebook dropped well below the IPO price of $38.00 per share.  Once again retail investor may be left holding the bag, as news was released that Morgan Stanley the lead underwriter in the IPO, reportedly moved in on Friday and purchased shares to prop up Facebook’s price.  It’s unknown how many shares Morgan Stanley purchased.  In trading today shares fell as low as $33.00 before closing at $34.03 -4.20 (-10.99%).  Chairman and CEO Mark Zuckerberg had about $2.2 billion of paper losses today, yet he is still worth more than $17 billion. In after-hours trading the losses are continuing. After Hours: 33.90 -0.13 (-0.38%)

MORNING COFFEE

China Says Yes to Google/Motorola. China has given the go-ahead to Google's (GOOG) $12 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility (MMI).  The deal should close this week and includes an agreement to make its Android OS available at no charge to all partners for five years. GOOG Pre-market: 604.04 +3.64 (0.61%), MMI Pre-market: 39.96 +0.76 (1.94%)

Barclays to Sell BlackRock Holding. Barclays (BCS) announced its plans to sell its $6.1 billion stake in BlackRock (BLK). BCS Pre-market: 11.31 +0.15 (1.34%), BLK Pre-market: 167.49 -4.42 (-2.57%)

Upgrades

Waters (WAT): Mizuho raised their rating from neutral to Buy and raised their target price from $84.00 to $92.00.

Boeing (BA): Argus raised their rating from Hold to Buy and placed a target price of $85.00 on the company. Pre-market: 69.70 +0.55 (0.80%)

Group 1 Automotive (GPI): Sterne Agree raised their rating from Neutral to Buy and placed a target price of $65.00 on the company.

American Eagle Outfitters (AEO): Brean Murray raised their rating from Hold to Buy and placed a target price of $23.00 on the company.

Downgrades

Bank of America (BAC): JMP Securities lowered their rating from Market Perform to Underperform. Pre-market: 7.09 +0.07 (1.00%)

Citigroup (C): JMP Securities lowered their rating from Market Perform to Underperform. Pre-market: 26.30 +0.29 (1.11%)

JPMorgan Chase (JPM): JMP Securities lowered their rating from Market Perform to Underperform. Pre-market: 33.70 +0.21 (0.63%)

Morgan Stanley (MS): JMP Securities lowered their rating from Market Perform to Underperform and lowered their target price from $26.00 to $11.00. Pre-market: 33.70 +0.21 (0.63%)

Goldman Sachs (GS): JMP Securities lowered their rating from Market Perform to Underperform and lowered their target price from $169.00 to $77.00. Pre-market: 96.05 +0.56 (0.59%)  

          .

TJX Cos. (TJX): Canaccord Genuity lowered their rating from Buy to Hold and placed a target price of $45.00 on the company.

Avon Products (AVP): UBS lowered their rating from Neutral to Sell and lowered their target price from $23.00 to $13.00. Pre-market: 16.08 -0.87 (-5.13%)

Best Buy (BBY): BB&T lowered their rating from Buy to Hold.

Earning Reports

Campbell Soup (CPB): Reported EPS of $0.56 beating estimates by +$0.04. Pre-market: 32.80 -0.60 (-1.80%)

Krispy Kreme (KKD): Reported EPS of $0.14 beating estimates by +$0.05.

Lowe’s (LOW): Reported EPS of $0.44 beating estimates by $0.03. Pre-market: 27.35 -1.13 (-3.97%)

Markets: 
Futures at 6:49: Dow +0.69%. S&P +0.66%. Nasdaq +0.71%. Crude +0.46% to $91.90. Gold +0.08% at $1593.20. 

Europe: London +0.66%. Paris +0.63%. Frankfurt +0.89%. 

Asia: Japan +0.26%. Hong Kong -0.16%. China +0.16%. India +0.19%. 

Facebook Ends Its First Day Of Trading With A Whimper.

Despite all the hype surrounding Facebook’s highly anticipated IPO the shares did nothing today. 

Because of demand, Facebook was able to not only increase the size of their offering but also their target range.  Yesterday, the shares were priced at the upper end of that range being priced at $38.00. 

Shares were to start trading this morning at 11:00pm ET, but the opening was delayed due to an imbalance in orders, delaying the opening a half hour.  Share eventually opened at $42.05, jumping to a high of $45.00 and then they began selling off. 

Shares ended up closing today just fractionally higher at $38.27 +0.27 (0.71%) disappointing many retail investors that purchased the company at the open.  567.11 million shares traded hands today.

Once the darling of Wall Street, now some are questioning the earning potential of the company going forward.  Some are saying the given the current valuation the company could be more than 40% overvalued and could drop into the high $20’s to low $30’s over the next few months. 

In 21 days more financials about the company will be released and in 91 days the lockup period is over allowing pre-IPO shareholders to sell their shares.  The purpose of a lockup period is to limit the downside pressure on the share price in the open market that would come if a lot of pre-IPO investors dumped their shares on the market all at once. Once the lockup period is over and pre-IPO shareholders can sell, downward pressure on the shares could increase dramatically.

Only time will tell what happens to the share price of Facebook, but for now I am content with just posting on FB and not owning the shares. After Hours: 38.19 -0.08 (-0.21%)

Facebook To Start Trading

Facebook (FB) will begin trading in less than 5 min.  Indications are that FB will open at $44.00 per share.

MORNING COFFEE

Facebook Begins Trading Today. Yesterday Facebook (FB) priced its shares which begin trading today at $38.00 per share. 

The hype surrounding the company’s IPO allowed the company to raise its initial price range of $28.00-$35.00 to $34.00-$38.00.  Then to meet demand Facebook increased the offering size of the IPO 25% to offer 421 million shares to the public.

The IPO allowed Facebook to raise about $16 billion and values the company at about $104 billion.  That makes the IPO the third largest ever for a U.S. company behind Visa (V) and GM (GM).

Some on Wall Street are questioning the company’s valuation.  Reports say that Peter Thiel, Goldman Sachs (GS) and Tiger Global all plan to sell up to 50% of their shares.  With a market capitalization of $104 billion, Facebook’s price-to-earnings ratio would be more than five times that of Apple (AAPL). Additionally, recent news came out that GM will be pulling its advertizing on the social networking site due to poor results. Putting into question whether the company will lose more large advertisers.

Resent history also has shown that investors that purchase shares in the open market the day the IPO begins trading do not do so well.  Here are some examples Pandora (P) was priced at $16.00 and the average price paid by the retail investor the day it began trading was $21.00.  Pandora is now trading at $10.52, for a loss of nearly -50%.

Groupon (GRPN) was priced at $20.00 at the IPO, retail investors paid on average $28.00 and the shares are now trading at $12.41 for a loss of -56%.

Zanga (ZNGA) was priced at $10.00 at the IPO, retail investors paid on average $10.00 and the shares are now trading at $8.27 for a loss of -17%.

Yelp (YELP): was priced at $15.00 at the IPO, retail investors paid on average $24.00 and the shares are now trading at $21.27 for a loss of -11%.

Will the same losses happen to investors that decide to purchase shares today?  Only time will tell.  But, this value portfolio manager will pass on purchasing shares today.

Upgrades

Prestige Brands (PBH): Oppenheimer raised their rating from Perform to Outperform and placed a target price of $17.00 on the company.

Morgan Stanley (MS): UBS raised their rating from Neutral to Buy and raised their target price from $19.00 to $21.00. Pre-market: 13.76 +0.30 (2.23%)

Coverage Initiated

Mattel (MAT): SunTrust initiated coverage with a Buy rating and target price of $40.00.

Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY): BMO Capital initiated coverage with an Outperform rating and target price of $39.00.

Eli Lilly (LLY): BMO Capital initiated coverage with a Market Perform rating and target price of $38.00. Pre-market: 40.53 0.00 (0.00%)

Corning (GLW): Susquehanna initiated coverage with a Neutral rating and target price of $14.00. After Hours: 12.81 -0.01 (-0.08%)

Liberty Media (LMCA): Evercore initiated coverage with an Overweight rating. Pre-market: 81.31 +1.64 (2.06%)

Yelp (YELP): Raymond James initiated coverage with a Market Perform rating. Pre-market: 21.50 +0.23 (1.08%)

Angie’s List (ANGI): Raymond James initiated coverage with an Outperform rating and target price of $17.00. After Hours: 13.05 -0.30 (-2.25%)

Earning Reports

Aeropostale (ARO): Reported EPS of $0.13 in-line with estimates. Pre-market: 17.81 +0.10 (0.56%)

Applied Materials (AMAT): Reported EPS of $0.27 beating estimates by +$0.03. Pre-market: 10.40 -0.08 (-0.76%)

Gap (GPS): Reported EPS of $0.47 beating estimates by +$0.01. Pre-market: 26.95 +0.64 (2.43%)

Intuit (INTU): Reported EPS of $2.51 beating estimates by +$).03. After Hours: 54.35 -0.06 (-0.11%)

Foot Locker (FL): Reported EPS of $0.83 beating estimates by +$0.09. Pre-market: 29.36 +1.35 (4.82%)

Markets: 
Futures at 8:02: Dow +0.37%. S&P +0.48%. Nasdaq +0.46%. Crude +0.10% to $92.66. Gold +0.95% to $1590.00. 

Europe: London -0.74%. Paris +0.23%. Frankfurt +0.19%. 

Asia: Japan -2.99%. Hong Kong -1.30%. China -1.44%. India +0.51%.