by Andrew LaVallee, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal, Digits
Google today reported a year-over-year decline in fourth-quarter profit, hurt by $1.09 billion in write-downs related to AOL and Clearwire. Operating earnings rose, however, and revenue climbed 18 percent to $5.70 billion from the year-earlier period. Google’s revenue, excluding traffic-acquisition costs, was $4.22 billion, above the Thomson Reuters estimate of $4.12 billion. Earnings per share, excluding certain items, was $5.10, beating estimates. The company also announced plans for an options exchange program for workers whose stock options are underwater.
by Eric Savitz, Blogger and Columnist, Barron's, Tech Trader Daily
Late Monday, Logitech said it is withdrawing its sales and operating income growth targets for the March 2009 fiscal year. The maker of computer peripherals and other consumer electronics accessories also said it will reduce its global workforce by about 15 percent. The company has about 9,400 employees, suggesting the loss of about 1,400 jobs.
by Eric Savitz, Blogger and Columnist, Barron's, Tech Trader Daily
Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray cut estimates on 33 Internet companies today. He claims that it’s due to the “significant deterioration in the economic and consumer spending outlook.” Well, at least people are saving a little money. Munster sees e-commerce spending down 10 percent in the coming year, and online advertising up just two percent.
by Eric Savitz, Blogger and Columnist, Barron's, Tech Trader Daily
Yesterday, Travelzoo posted weaker-than-expected results for this quarter. The company’s aggressive expansion into the Asia Pacific and European markets, coupled with troubled economic conditions in North America, impacted the company to an unforeseen extent. CEO Holger Bartel plans to curtail activity in both markets during Q4.
Novell posted revenue for its fiscal third quarter ended July 31 of $245 million, ahead of the Street consensus of $241.4 million. The company had non-GAAP profits of 6 cents a share, beating the Street by a penny.
Dell posted stronger-than-expected top-line growth in the fiscal second quarter ended Aug. 1, but it had lower-than-expected profits as margins missed Street expectations.
This has been a sleepy week here in the Valley, but it’s time to wake up: This afternoon brings a boatload of pre-Labor Day earnings news. It’s pretty much the last gasp for the June- and July-quarter companies; with tomorrow the last trading day of August, it’s almost time for the first round of September-quarter pre-announcements. Something to look forward to when you get back from the beach.
by Eric Savitz, Blogger and Columnist, Barron's, Tech Trader Daily
The steady crumbling of the value of the U.S. dollar over the last two years has given a big boost to reported earnings at many U.S. companies that sell goods overseas in local currencies but report in dollars.
by Eric Savitz, Blogger and Columnist, Barron's, Tech Trader Daily
Thanks largely to Thursday’s disappointing earnings reports from Microsoft and Google, sentiment on tech stocks was terrible on Friday, driving down share prices across the board. One notable victim was Apple, which fell $6.66 (Satanic!), or 3.9 percent, to $165.15.
If I see the balding guy in the Verizon commercial marching in front of the New Orleans Hard Hat Band one more time, I’m going to pull my FiOS TV cable out of the wall. But when it released financial results for the first quarter Monday, Verizon said this ad and the $99 unlimited talk plan it advertises were working well for the company. On a conference call with investors, the company said 13% of its new customers are signing up for the $99 plan, according to an account by the Associated Press. Previously, only 4% of its customers chose plans with bundles of minutes that cost $99 or more.
Let me just say from the very outset: Any other publicly traded company would kill for growth like this, products like these, customers like those who can’t seem to snap up Apple gear fast enough. But Apple is hardly just “any other publicly traded company,” and, like it or not, the company is different–so investors “think different” when it comes to Apple.
Yahoo did just well enough in the first quarter for it to be able to hold its head up high as it tries to justify its continued rejection of Microsoft’s hostile bid. … But panning back, there is still something wrong with this picture. I moderated a panel Tuesday afternoon at the Advertising Club of New York. The marketers there, like most big marketers, say they are shifting large chunks of their ad budgets from television onto the Internet. So why, in a market where money is being thrown online, does Yahoo, the second-largest seller of Internet ads, only have an increase in its online ad revenue of 7% over a year ago?
Is Google’s blockbuster advertising machine sputtering? Wall Street will be looking for an answer from the Internet giant on Thursday when it reports first-quarter earnings.
Cisco Systems shares are under pressure, ahead of the company’s Wednesday afternoon announcement of earnings for its fiscal second quarter ended January. The looming Cisco results are giving some investors the jitters, given what happened the last time they reported earnings: CEO John Chambers cautioned that the company was seeing a year-over-year decline in U.S. enterprise orders, and the broad stock market plunged.
While certainly investors will be watching for any sign of trouble in the January quarter results, the real issue is going to be what the company says about the rest of its fiscal year, which ends in July.
Yahoo’s after-market reaction to the company’s earnings news says it all: Yahoo down 8% percent and you gotta wonder just how bad this news is going to get before it gets any better. If it gets any better. Stunning for a company that says today it enjoys 2 billion page views a month in the U.S. alone.
Yahoo did share some good news: beating the street by 4 cents a share, posting 15 cents instead of the 11 cents analysts projected. Earningswhisper.com expected 14 cents–so Yahoo even beat that. It posted those numbers on as-expected revenue of $1.4 billion.
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