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Thursday, November 19, 2009

Merrill Turns Cautious on Chips, Foundries; Many Downgrades; Stocks Swoon

Eric Savitz

Bank of America/Merrill Lynch chip analyst Sumit Dhanda this morning turned cautious on semiconductor stocks, downgrading a slew of stocks; his colleague Daniel Heyler made a comparable on the foundries, lower ratings on a number of stocks.

“We are downgrading our view on the sector given unfavorable indications from our cyclical framework,” he writes.

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Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Ripoff Alert: Senate Probes “Post Transaction Marketing,” Other Dubious Web Sales Practices; UNTD, VPRT Slide

Eric Savitz

Several Internet stocks are taking some heat this morning following the release yesterday of a Senate report on aggressive sales tactics on the Web–and in particular singling out for scorn a practice known as “post-transaction marketing.”

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Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Salesforce.com FY Q3 Revs Beat, EPS In Line; Stock Sags

Eric Savitz

Salesforce.com posted revenue for its fiscal third quarter ended October 31 of $330.5 million, up 20 percent year over year, and ahead of the Street at $324.4 million. EPS was in line with estimates at 16 cents.

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Overstock Fires Auditor Over Accounting Dispute; Files 10-Q Anyway

Eric Savitz

Seriously, Overstock.com has to provide more entertainment value per dollar of market cap than any company in America.

Consider yesterday’s developments at the online retailer. The company disclosed in both a press release and an 8-K filing with the SEC that it has fired Grant Thornton as its auditor. Grant Thornton had become the company’s auditor in March, replacing Price Waterhouse.

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SunPower Finds Accounting Errors; May Restate; Launches Probe; Stock Slides

Eric Savitz

SunPower this afternoon said a review of its Philippine manufacturing operations found the company may have made “unsubstantiated accounting entries” in the first three quarters of 2009, some of them relating to 2008. The company said its Audit Committee is investigating the matter.

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Friday, November 13, 2009

Matching Wal-Mart, Amazon Offers $100 Gift Cards to BlackBerry Buyers

Eric Savitz

Matching a recent move by Wal-Mart, Amazon.com has unveiled a new promotion on Research in Motion BlackBerry phones, giving buyers of certain models who sign up for new 2-year plans free $100 “e-gift cards.”

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Thursday, November 12, 2009

Applied Materials: Burned by the Sun

Applied Materials yesterday afternoon posted stellar results for the fiscal fourth quarter ended October 25; revenue of $1.53 billion was well ahead of the Street at $1.32 billion, and non-GAAP EPS of 13 cents a share crushed the consensus number at three cents.

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Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Google Plans $750 Million Buyback to Offset AdMob Dilution

Eric Savitz

Google plans to buy back $750 million of its common stock to offset dilution from shares to be issued in the pending all-stock acquisition of AdMob, CEO Eric Schmidt told Bloomberg yesterday.

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Applied Materials: The Next Tech Layoffs?

Eric Savitz

In a development that only Scrooge and the Grinch would find amusing, the tech industry has entered into a fevered period of pre-holiday job cuts.

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Monday, November 9, 2009

Live Nation Sees Ticketmaster Deal Closing in Q1

Eric Savitz

Live Nation today said it expects the acquisition of the company by Ticketmaster to close in the first quarter of next year. Meanwhile, both companies today posted solid results for the third quarter.

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Friday, November 6, 2009

Judge Orders BlueBeat.com to Pull Down Beatles Songs, Other Music; the Psycho-Acoustic Simulation Defense

Eric Savitz

You should not be surprised to learn that a federal judge yesterday ordered BlueBeat.com to immediately stop selling Beatles songs and other music from its site, rejecting a goofy assertion that the company had copyrights on the songs via the use of something called “psycho-acoustic simulation.”

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Thursday, November 5, 2009

Activision Q3 Edges Guidance; No Change In Full Year View

Eric Savitz

Activision Blizzard this afternoon posted slightly better-than-expected Q3 results, and reiterated its previous guidance for the full year.

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Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Garmin Q3 Tops Estimates; Stock Rallies, Then Falls (Updated)

Eric Savitz

Garmin this morning reported much better-than-expected Q3 results, giving an early lift to shares of the GPS device maker.

For the quarter, Garmin posted revenue of $781 million and non-GAAP EPS of $1.02 a share; the Street had expected $704 million and 69 cents. Revenue was down 10 percent year over year, but up 17 percent sequentially.

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Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Amazon: Any Price You Can Cut, I Can Cut Lower, I Can Cut Any Price Lower Than You

So, the race to $0 book prices continues.

As the AP notes this morning, the fierce price cutting in the book business, which until now had focused largely on pre-orders, has now spread to current works: Amazon.com is offering both John Grisham’s short-story collection Ford County and Barbara Kingsolver’s new novel The Lacuna for $9 apiece.

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Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Roth Cuts Intel, Several Chips

Eric Savitz

Roth Capital Partners analyst Arnab Chanda this morning lowered his rating on several chip stocks to “Hold” from “Buy,” citing the risk of a modest inventory build given high projected margins and growth at Intel, Marvell, Nvidia and others.

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