Owner: Stockweb - Eastern Europe trading URL:www.stockweb.blogspot.com Join Date: Mon, 30 Apr 2007 11:17:54 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: Daily update on investment strategies. Free realtime data for Czech Stock Exchange. Trading shares and derivates in US, EU and Eastern European countries (Czech Republic, Romania, Bulgaria, Poland) Site statistics:Click here
IPO in 2008. 2008-03-21 06:28:29 Prague Stock Exchange listed 2 IPOs in 2007 (VGP, AAA Auto). Investors expected at least 2 more share issue. And 2008 doesn't promise any improvement. Especially used car seller AAA Auto is a big disappointment. Issue price (CZK 55) was well above issue value. And since first day share price has been going down (price today CZK 18). All promises during road show like expected profit for 2007 at CZK 200 mln didn't match reality. Company closed year with losses CZK 120 mln. In 2008 we should see already postponed IPO NWR (owned by OKD). And also fourth developer CTP Invest.
Financials and FED helped stock markets. 2008-03-20 13:27:58 Stock markets have rebounded this short trading week. Fortunately Black Monday stayed only with Bear Stearns and the fear hasn't been spread all over. FED cut by 75 bp below street expectation but it has been taken as a good step. Gold and crude oil stepped down from record prices and US dollar bounced from bottom.Let's have a look to broadly expected earnings results for brokerages.Both Lehman Bros and Goldman Sachs reported this week significant profit decline, 57% down respectively 53%. Even thought they beat estimates which returns faith in financial sector. As well as Morgan Stanley on Wednesday with decline 42% (top analyst estimates). After Bear Stearn collapse there were a lot of fear about earnings this week. Nevertheless the most risky is seen result of Merrill Lynch. This compan
Fed to Auction $75B in Treasuries. 2008-03-21 16:19:20 Thursday was a good day for the market, as both oil and gold prices fell. Perhaps even more encouraging was the news that the Fed will auction $75 million in securities to banks next week. Will this have a lasting effect on the economy? Hard to say, though investors are certainly more confident right now.The market reflected another change on Thursday. The Dow Jones rose over 260 points (2.2%), the Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 2.4%, and the Nasdaq rose 2.2%. It was a welcome relief for everyone, no doubt. The Dow lost almost 300 points the day before, costing investors almost all of their previous gains.The roller coaster ride will stop for several days, but analysts are confident that the stock exchange will open to the same optimism when it opens its doors on Monday. Following th Read more:Auction
Business week. Key economic data. 2008-03-24 11:54:04 MondayEconomic Existing Home Sales (4.86M)Earnings Tiffany (TIF), China Fire & Security (CSFG), Walgreen (WAG), Sonic (SONC)TuesdayEconomic Consumer Confidence (75.0)Earnings Commercial Metals (CMC), Qiao Mobile (QXM), Jabil (JBL), Pep Boys (PBY), SAIC (SAI)Events CS Leveraged Finance ConferenceWednesdayEconomic Weekly Crude, Durable Orders (1.0%), New Home Sales (580K)Earnings DSW (DSW), Solarfun (SOLF), Citi Trends (CTRN), Oracle (ORCL), Paychex (PAYX), Robbins & Myers (RBN)Events Chicago & Dallas Fed speechesThursdayEconomic GDP & Chain Deflator (.6%, 2.7%), Weekly Claims (350K)Earnings ConAgra (CAG), Lennar (LEN), Texas Ind (TXI), Accenture (ACN), Apollo (APOL), Global Payment (GPN), Red Hat (RHT), Steelcase (SCS), Xyratex (XRTX)Events Minneapolis & Cleveland Fed sp Read more:Business
Launch for new international ETF. 2008-03-29 10:33:19 Undiscovered emerging markets are now revealed by new ETF issued by Barclays iShares. ETF for Thailand, Turkey, Isreal extend group of international ETF listed on AMEX. Barclays is the first issuer underlying these countries. Until now there have been closed end funds for Turkey (TKF) or Thailand (TTF) (TF).iShares MSCI Isreal Capped Investable Market Index Fund (EIS)iShares MSCI Turkey Investable Market Fund (TUR) iShares MSCI Thailand Investable Market Index Fund (THD)In addition to country specific two new global funds were launched. iShares MSCI ACWI Index Fund (ACWI) iShares MSCI ACWI ex US Fund (ACWX)
Read more:Launch
Inflation pressures in European emerging markets. 2008-03-31 13:12:05 Consumer prices in New Europe continue to grow up. Like Baltic states where for all three countries inflation is above 10 %. The highest rate is in Latvia with 16,5% followed by Estonia (11,5%) and Lithuania (10,9%). EU newcomers Bulgaria and Romania don't skew with 12,2% respectively 8%.Also other economies of Central Europe (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland) are well above targets. Central banks will be forced again to tighten monetary policy in coming month.Surging inflation in Baltic states could postpone membership to join euro-zone. Nevertheless this year global slowdown could result in cutting cost of money by ECB. Central banks in Central and Eastern Europe predict ease for the rest of the year.
Read more:Inflation
, European
Business week. Growth stocks earnings. 2008-03-31 07:40:38 MondayEconomic Chicago PMI (46.7)Earnings Pacific Ethanol (PEIX), Shaw Group (SGR), HB Fuller (FUL), Rismetrics (RMG)TuesdayEconomic Auto / Truck (5.1M, 6.6M), Construction (-.9%), ISM Index (48.2)Earnings Qiao Xing (QXM)WednesdayEconomic Weekly Crude, ADP (-23K), Factory O’s (.7%)Earnings Best Buy (BBY), CarMax (KMX), Lulumon (LULU), Monsanto (MON), Micron (MU), Research In Motion (RIMM), Ruby Tuesday (RT)ThursdayEconomic Weekly Claims (360K), ISM Services (49.2)Earnings Constellation Brands (STZ), RPM (RPM), WellCare (WCG), Verifone (PAY)FridayEconomic Jobs Report (-40K, 5.0%, .3%)Earnings AZZ Inc (AZZ), Mosaic (MOS), Family Dollar (FDO)
Read more:Business
, Growth
Google acquires Skype. 2008-04-02 15:08:27 This is the rumour coming to the market today. Actually this would be win win situation for both companies. Ebay (EBAY) struggled with huge writedown due to Skype
. This service really doesn't fit to eBay portfolio. The idea of easy communication between sellers and buyers during auctions seemed a bit far-fetched.On the other side Google
(GOOG) has wide experience with all social networking applications and communication services. Skype could be another useful tool with easy integration to current Google services.Ebay bought Skype in for $4.1 bln and speculation sell price varies $4-6 bln.2 weeks ago share price was at 15 times cash flow which was extremely cheap. Recently Ebay performs very well and it is among the best in Nasdaq 100. Any other speculations or rumours could fuelled price i
Tech stocks in focus. 2008-04-02 14:40:09 Nasdaq bear up against credit turmoil in early stage (mid of 2007) but January sell off hit this new economy index the most. On 17th of March after Bear & Stearns (BSC) bail out I posted that I expect rebound. Technically speaking double bottom has been formed. Market was oversold and quite resistant against all bad news coming to the street.Last couple of days we could see nice short rally triggered mainly by tech companies. Index Nasdaq 100 has gained almost 10% during last 2 weeks. I've applied stock screen for all 100 shares included in index. Here you have leaders and laggards in % price change for past 2 weeks.Company (Ticker) % price change1. VERTEX PHARMACEUT (VRTX) 72,62. Amylin Pharmaceuticals (AMLN) 27,63. Leap Wireless (LEAP) 25,24. Broadcom Corp (BRCM) 23,95. INTUITIVE SUR
1st Anniversary as a blogger. 2008-04-06 06:54:49 Exactly one year ago I started my StockWeb blog. And this was my first expepience with blogging. Up to now StockWeb is the only one active blog I maintain.Let me have a look to this year. I've enjoyed blogging. I learnt a lot about SEO optimizing, how to get traffic, ads and affiliate programs. How to optimize and customize your Beta Blogger site. Special thanks to all bloggers providing hacks and tricks for New Blogspot.I did many changes with my 3 column blogspot template which is originally based on Rounders Blogspot template.StockWeb is currently with Google page rank 3. According to page rank prediction tool, blog is heading to get assigned 4 or 5 PR.Another great benefit from blogging, you get to know bloggers with the same interest as you have. Let me list my favourite bloggers writ Read more:Anniversary
Feedburner - Problems with feed ads. 2008-04-05 09:32:15 Recently many bloggers are complaning about ads for RSS feed provided by Feedburner. Basically this is one of the best feed advertising model which is based on CPM. You as a FAN (Feedburner Ads Network) member receive offers for ads. And then you either approve or decline. Rates depend on topic you write about but financial or technology feeds are rewarded the most (Up to $10 for 1000 impressions).Nevertheless as I pointed out in the beginning FAN ads shows some discontinuity. Publishers still receive offers but after acceptance ads are not displayed in their feed. Are these problems somehow connected with "feed CPC ads" tested by Google Adsense (Beta version)?
Forbes Blog Network - Update. 2008-04-05 08:56:33 This is aggregated blog network which associates business and finance blogs. Members are reviewed and accepted directly by Forbes
after application is submitted. Forbes also sends invitation directly to high quality blogs.First official launch date was scheduled for January 2008. Two weeks ago all members received official announcement about Nick Ricci appointment as General Manager for network. At the same day information was released to the press.In addition we received expected date for start up. Whithin 4 - 8 weeks from announcement which means on May.
Read more:Update
Earnings season starts up. 2008-04-07 09:02:50 MondayEconomic Consumer Credit ($6.0B)Earnings
Alcoa (AA)TuesdayEconomic Pending Homes (-.5%), FOMC MinutesEarnings Chattem (CHTT), Sealy (ZZ)WednesdayEconomic Weekly Crude, Wholesale Inv’s. (.5%)Earnings Circuit City (CC), Progressive (PGR), Shaw (SGR), Bed Bath & Beyond (BBBY)ThursdayEconomic Weekly Claims (380K), Trade Balance ($-57.4B)Earnings FC Stone (FCSX), Pier One (PIR), WellCare (WCG), Genentech (DNA),FridayEconomic Import / Export, Michigan (69.4)Earnings Fastenal (FAST), General Electric (GE)
The biggest IPO on stock market. 2008-04-10 14:39:40 Mining group New World Resources (NWR) share issue is coming to 3 European stock markets. Company intends to float shares on stock exchanges in London, Warsaw and Prague. IPO is expected during second quarter this year. 25 - 33% of shares should be listed and NWR seeks 300 mln EUR (analyst's top estimates are 1,4 bln EUR) from transaction. This would be the biggest IPO on Prague Stock Exchange in its history.NWR Group owns OKD (black coal mining company) which is the biggest asset with 143 mln EUR net profit last year.
Market share for search engine results. 2008-04-12 06:36:02 Latest numbers from Nielsen show the best performing search engines. Google (GOOG) still increases market share and now is with 58,7%. But there is better progress with Yahoo (YHOO) that gained more than 1% compared to January report. Yahoo now stands with 19% market share.Microsoft (MSFT) engine without interesting move. MSN 1 percent down to 11,2%. AOL half percent up to 5,2%.The last engine with higher than 1% market share is Ask. Here we don't see any significant move. The share is 2,5%.
Read more:Market
, results
Ebay summary. 2008-04-13 14:28:35 Incoming week we have earnings call Q1 scheduled for eBay (EBAY). As I posted recently (Google acquires Skype) share price was at 15 times cash flow which showed good buying opportunity. Stock price is up by 20% in last 3 weeks. But how about Q1?Ebay has changed fee strategy, decrease insertion fees for sellers and increased fee from each sale. Based on 3rd party research this change helped sellers to increase sales by 10-20%.GMV (Gross merchandise volume) is key indicator for Ebay. It's a percentage growth (year on year) for total value of sold goods in USD. Last GMV was just 12% compared to 20% one year ago. All fee changes could show better than expected GMV which is only around 10%.The big pain of previous quarters, Skype, also is doing better. Last quarter with 76% revenue increase. S
Corporate earnings. 2008-04-13 06:21:41 This hasn't been good start for earnings season Q1. Alcoa (AA) disappointed, UPS (UPS) reduced significantly first quarter estimates. And at the end of the week General Electric (GE) reported very bad quarter results and shares fall by 13%.Coming week brings many interesting reports. You remember the same week for previous quarter was big disappointment. And there was only successful story with IBM (IBM). Which data I am interested in:1. Earnings results for financial. J.P. Morgan Chase (JPM), Citigroup (C), Wachovia (WB) and Merrill Lynch (MER). This will give us answer to key question whether credit crisis deepens or is over. In my view this will be driver for stock markets in next week.2. Earnings for big tech stocks. I'm bit afraid about Google (GOOG) to meet expectation. Ebay (EBAY) f
Google assigned PR4 to my blog. 2008-04-14 11:26:30 Yesterday I checked my google page rank and to my surprise I get PR 4. I think it has been assigned some time ago but I didn't check this for long time. Actually if you use some tool to check you google page rank you can get different results. On some tools I saw PR 3 and sometimes PR 4. The best way how to check your page rank is with Google
toolbar integrated in Mozilla Firefox. I am very glad to have PR 4 and it has been already reflected in number of visitors coming from search engines.Also I've tried to check which page rank StockWeb is heading to. And based on Google PR prediction tools is PR4 or PR5.
Business week. Corporate earnings. 2008-04-14 09:40:07 MondayEconomic: Retail Sales (.1%, .2%), Biz’ Inv. (.4%)Earnings: Eaton (ETN), Infosys (INFY)TuesdayEconomic PPI & Core (.4%, .2%), Empire (-16.0)Earnings Forest Labs (FRX), J & J (JNJ), M & T (MTB), State Street (STT), US Bancorp (USB), CSX (CSX), Intel (INTC), Seagate (STX), WaMu (WM)WednesdayEconomic: Weekly Crude, CPI & Core (.3%, .2%), Housing & Bldg P’s (1.025M, 970K), IP & CU (-.1%, 80.4%), Fed’s Beige BookEarnings: Coke (KO), Illinois Tool (ITW), Johnson Controls (JCI), JP Morgan (JPM), NO Ed & Tech (EDU), Wells Fargo (WFC), eBay (EBAY), Gilead (GILD), IBM (IBM)ThursdayEconomic: Weekly Claims (385K), Leading Indicators (.1%), Philly Fed (-14.0)Earnings: Amphenol (APH), Bank of NY (BK), Cypress (CY), Danaher (DHR), Harley (HOG), Intl Game (IGT), Mer Read more:Business
Internet recession? Paid clicks down again. 2008-04-16 11:42:01 In March all major search engines were rapidly slowing in paid clicks. Data from ComScore shows results for major web companies:Google (GOOG) up 2,7%Yahoo (YHOO) down 3,1%MSN (MSFT) down 15,1%AOL (TWX) down 2,3%As you can see especially for Microsoft's MSN March was horrible month. Google is winner but still well behind growth prospect. For Q1 Google's paid clicks are up by 1,8%. In January down 0,3%, February up 3,1%.This makes me bit afraid of Google earnings call on Thursday. On the other site revenue estimates were cut dramatically from 40% to 25% US growth. To balance weakness in paid clicks Google needs strong increase in price per click.
Read more:Internet
Tech stock technically. 2008-04-18 14:35:24 This week was very good especially for tech companies. After good earnings results many tech stocks cross above resistance line. Look at the first chart. Technology sector SPDR ETF (XLK) as a benchmark for industry. ETF already tested resistance in the beginning of April. Today we can see breakout.Second picture is for Research in Motion (RIMM) where shares cross resistance. And we are only 10% below all time high. Research in Motion has been very resistant during last half year turmoils.Third is Microsoft (MSFT). There have been many news about Yahoo (YHOO) acquisition and MSFT lost all gains from last successful year. The chart shows 3 years and there is evident very strong support and resistance at $26. Also now this level has helped to bounce.Last chart is for Apple (AAPL) with today'
Google and ComScore. 2008-04-18 13:19:30 NASDAQ is up almost 3% dragged by positive sentiment in tech. All these happened after Google
(GOOG) tops analyst estimates for Q1. And Google shares are high flying more than 20%. But there is something sad about the story. You remember recent statistics released by ComScore (SCOR). Reporting y-o-y 1,8% growth for paid clicks for Google. And Google's report shows 20% rise. Of course those are 2 different numbers as ComScore announced US paid clicks and Google's number is for global growth. But still this inconsistency is raising question Can you measure (predict) by ComScore?Not really.
Total subprime writedowns. 2008-04-19 11:14:41 On the beginning of February I posted article about total credit market losses and write-downs (Total
writedowns Feb 2008).On this post I received comment from Cyrille from UK. He informed us about updated losses. Have a look to the progress within 2 months, total losses have deepened from 146 billion USD to 231 billion USD.Data source: Bloomberg.Company Writedown Credit l. TotalUBS (UBS) 38 38Merrill Lynch (MER) 25.1 25.1Citigroup (C) 21.4 2.5 23.9HSBC (HBC) 3 9.4 12.4Morgan Stanley (MS) 11.7 11.7IKB Deutsche 9 9Bank of America (BAC 7.3 0.9 8.2Deutsche Bank (DB) 7.4
Market Takes Toll on Nokia. 2008-04-21 05:43:11 Nokia (NOK) reported a disappointing first quarter last week and blamed worldwide economic problems for its sudden reduction in the next year's forecast. The Finnish cell phone giant expects the market to fall in euro terms and, although the company did see profits in the first quarter, the average selling price per phone plummeted.This unexpected turn for Nokia has been greatly attributed to the weakened U.S. dollar, the slowing of the U.S. economy and the possible slowing of the European economy. The company experienced its greatest intraday loss since 2005 when shares dropped 9.6 percent last week.Nokia, the largest maker of cell phones in the world, is largely dependent on its European market. The possibility of economic struggle is what most concerns the company and last week's revela Read more:Market
, Nokia
Finance Google vs. Finance Yahoo. 2008-04-22 14:17:25 Google
recently released Stock screener on its finance site. I've decided to test it and provide you my impression. Basically it's a scan for fundamental analysis. Comparing to the similar tool provided by Yahoo
(basic screener) I have to say Google is slightly better.Google's additional functionality which you can't find on Yahoo:+ setting values instead of Yahoo's predefined number ranges+ more growth indicators (net income, revenue)+ margin indicators (EBITDA, gross, operating)+ institutional holders+ advanced dividend tracking+ volume vs. average volume+ 52 weeks low high changeExcept those you can see so called "Company distribution" range. This gives you idea where your value is compared to rest of the market. I haven't found that as very helpful.This was my brief evaluation of simi
M&A - Internet companies. 2008-04-28 10:14:33 Acquisition case Microsoft (MSFT) vs. Yahoo (YHOO) is still open. But there is a hot news today related surprisingly to Czech internet world. Microsoft negotiates with the biggest Czech internet portal and search engine Seznam.cz . This is still not official but rumours released today in Czech press. This would make already second big acquisition on Czech internet. Month ago Warburg Pincus merged 2nd and 3rd biggest internet portal (Seznam and Atlas).
Read more:Internet
ETF for CEE emerging markets. 2008-04-26 14:58:42 Up to now you can find 2 ETF focused on emerging markets in Central andEastern Europe.SPDR S&P Emerging Europe (GUR)Central Europe & Russia Fund CEF (CEE)Both with half holdings in Russia and the rest coming from Poland, Turkey, Czech Republic and Hungary. It's always very difficult for US investor to find investment instrument into Poland, Czech Republic or EU newcomers like Romania and Bulgaria.But, there is a new ETF in the pipeline. iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Eastern Europe Index Fund. Ishares filed prospect in the beginning of April (link on SEC.gov).
How to invest in crude oil (with ETF). 2008-04-28 16:09:59 Crude oil is reaching $120 and discussions about what is target price are becoming topic number one. In this post let me provide you comparison of the most liquid ETF underlying crude oil futures or companies from oil industry.As you can see on year-to-year basis the leader is Claymore MACROshares Oil Up Tradeable Shares (UCR). This is a bit complicated structure for price valuation. But basically it consists of shares of the MacroShares Oil Up Holding Trust. And income reflects trading and settlement with futures contracts.The laggard is Proshares UltraShort Oil & Gas (DUG). But this ETF is underlying (going short) companies like Exxon Mobil (XOM), Chevron (CVX), Conoco Philips (COP) and others. This price drop is more likely triggered by good performance of oil companies rather than Read more:invest
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