Starbucks shares slump 11 percent after earnings miss

Starbucks shares slump 11 percent after earnings miss

Stock Market Predictions

(Global Markets) - Starbucks Corp (SBUX.O) shares slid more than 11 percent Friday, in their biggest one-day drop in 12 years, after it missed quarterly profit expectations and cut its outlook as visits to its U.S. coffee shops dwindled.

The world's largest coffee chain said on Thursday that store traffic was "noticeably down" in many areas across the United States in a sluggish pattern that began in June and continued in July.

The company missed Wall Street's quarterly profit estimate by 2 cents a share, a rarity for one of the food industry's top performers that, along with disappointing results from Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc (CMG.N) and McDonald's Corp (MCD.N), has stoked fears about a revision of growth expectations for the sector.

"I'd be cautious right now," Investment Technology Group Inc research analyst Steve West said. "They're all high-valuation stocks. It's live by the sword, die by the sword."

Starbucks shares were down $5.78, or 11 percent, at $46.63 on Nasdaq. The stock had appreciated nearly 14 percent in the year to date, before its results were announced Thursday.

It was rated "Buy" by 16 analysts, "Outperform" by seven, "Hold" by six and "Underperform" by one. There are no "Sell" ratings on the stock.

Despite the disappointing results, most analysts stuck to their ratings, citing Starbucks' ongoing efforts to diversify its revenue beyond coffee drinks bought at stores.

The company recently launched a line of Refreshers fruit drinks, and is working on its own single-serve coffee brewers. It also has single-serve "K-Cups" for Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc's (GMCR.O) Keurig brewers and a line of instant coffee.

"They're proactive in the things they're doing," said Williams Capital Group analyst Marc Riddick, who has a "Buy" rating on the shares.

(Reporting by Martinne Geller in New York. Additional reporting by Lisa Baertlein in Los Angeles; Editing by Bernadette Baum)

Amazon shares up nearly 8 percent on profit hopes

Amazon shares up nearly 8 percent on profit hopes

Stock Market Predictions

SAN FRANCISCO (Global Markets) - Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) shares jumped 8 percent on Friday after quarterly results gave Wall Street hope that the world's largest Internet retailer is focusing on profits.

Amazon reported a big drop in second-quarter net income late on Thursday and forecast a possible operating loss in the third quarter as the company plows ahead with a massive investment drive on multiple fronts.

But the company's gross profit margin, a closely watched measure of its profitability, topped 26 percent in the second quarter, the highest level in at least nine years. <ID: L2E8IQGVG>.

The increase in gross margin was partly driven by the growth of Amazon's online marketplace for third-party merchants, known as 3P. This business accounted for 40 percent of unit sales in the second quarter, up from 36 percent a year ago.

When Amazon sells products itself, it reports the total value of the sale as revenue. The cost of that product is then subtracted for a gross profit margin.

When a third-party merchant sells products on Amazon's marketplace, the company gets a cut of that sale. That commission is reported as revenue, and most of it falls straight to its bottom line as profit.

So as Amazon's 3P business grows, the company's overall revenue growth may slow, but profit margins should increase.

Amazon Chief Financial Officer Tom Szkutak told analysts during a conference call on Thursday that the growth of 3P helped boost gross profit margins.

Amazon shares were up 8 percent at $237.80 in afternoon trading on Friday. <ID: L2E8IR59U>.

"There's evidence now that they are starting to make tweaks to drive profitability," said Matt Nemer, an analyst at Wells Fargo. "Six months ago there were no signs of this."

In February, Amazon hiked fulfillment fees for some third-party merchants that sell on Amazon's online marketplace.

In January, it changed its popular Amazon Mom program, which offers shipping and other discounts to new mothers and others who take care of children.

Amazon Mom subscribers used to get a year of Amazon's Prime program for free. Prime usually costs $79 a year and offers free two-day shipping. The new version of Amazon Mom reduced that to three months free.

Amazon also recently increased the fee charged to Prime customers for one-day, Saturday delivery to $8.99 from $3.99, according to Colin Gillis, an analyst at BGC Financial.

While such moves are small, they have been construed by Wall Street as a sign that Amazon may be trying to better align costs, especially in its shipping operations.

Amazon said net shipping costs were 4.6 percent of sales in the second quarter, down from 4.9 percent a year earlier and 5.4 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011 - before the fulfillment fee and Amazon Mom changes kicked in.

(Editing by Leslie Gevirtz and John Wallace)

Facebook revenue growth skids, shares plunge

Facebook revenue growth skids, shares plunge

Stock Market Predictions

SAN FRANCISCO (Global Markets) - Facebook Inc reported a drastic slowdown in revenue growth and offered no financial forecasts to ease worries over the prospects for boosting advertising in its first earnings report as a public company, sending its shares to a record low.

Facebook executives pointed to early signs of success in new advertising services, but the lack of a detailed financial outlook went over poorly with investors hoping for evidence that the company could soon reverse the continuing slowdown in its business.

"The question is, do you get a re-acceleration in the business at some point?" said Oppenheimer & Co analyst Jason Helfstein. "Because they didn't give you guidance, you're going to have to wait to find out what happens."

Shares of Facebook, which have shed a third of their value since their haphazard May debut at $38, broke below $24 in frenzied after-hours trading. The social networking pioneer was the first American company to debut with a market value of more than $100 billion.

Mark Zuckerberg, the 28-year-old chief executive who created Facebook in his Harvard dorm room, said the company was seeing encouraging results from newly introduced advertising services and that Facebook now has a "clear path" to building a strong mobile business.

"Mobile is a huge opportunity for Facebook," said Zuckerberg, noting that the company was investing "very heavily" in improving its mobile apps.

The company, which competes with established Web companies such as Google Inc and Yahoo Inc, said its capital expenditures more than tripled to $413 million in the second quarter.

Facebook's finance chief also said operating expenses in the second half of the year would increase significantly compared with the rate in year-ago period.

"At this early stage of our growth, investment is a top priority as opposed to managing for a target margin," said CFO David Ebersman.

Facebook posted a net loss of $157 million, or 8 cents a share, in the second quarter after taking hefty stock compensation charges related to its IPO. That compared to net income of $240 million, or 11 cents, in the year-ago quarter.

Excluding the charges, Facebook said it earned 12 cents a share, in line with Wall Street's forecast.

RISING AD PRICES

Facebook has raced through eight years of break-neck growth that was to have culminated with its May initial public offering.

Instead, its share price has headed south as investors questioned its valuation of more than 50 times earnings and its longer-term ability to sustain growth as users migrate to mobile devices.

Monthly active users grew to 955 million at the end of the second quarter, up from 901 million at the end of March. But mobile monthly active users surged 67 percent year-on-year to 543 million users, adding further pressure on Facebook's business, which only recently began to offer limited forms of mobile advertising.

Facebook's Ebersman noted that advertising "impressions" lagged user growth during the second quarter but that new social ads, which appear directly in Facebook users' "newsfeeds", were driving up ad rates.

The average price of a Facebook ad increased 9 percent during the quarter, Ebersman said, driven primarily by the United States where rates jumped 20 percent with the company's newly released social ads.

"It's a positive, but it's still early," said Ken Sena, an analyst with Evercore Partners, about the performance of Facebook's new ads.

"We won't likely be seeing much material impact any time soon," he said.

The stock price is also likely to come under further pressure, Sena warned, from the imminent expiry of a stock lockup imposed on many Facebook employees after the IPO. That could bring a flood of new shares to the market.

A CHALLENGE ANEW

Facebook reported revenue increased 32 percent in the second quarter to $1.18 billion, a hair above the average analyst forecast of $1.15 billion according to Thomson Global Markets I/B/E/S.

Facebook's growth rate in the second quarter was the slowest since the first three months of 2011, the earliest period for which the company has disclosed information about its revenue growth.

"They beat, but the Street was looking for more and that's why I think shares turned lower after an initial bounce," said Michael Matousek, a senior trader at U.S. Global Investors Inc, which manages about $3 billion.

"The big question with the stock is how it will monetize its billion or so users. A lot of people think they can't convert those users to money.

On Wednesday, social games leader Zynga - which accounts for over one-10th of Facebook's revenue and faces the same challenge of earning off mobile users - stunned investors after slashing its 2012 earnings forecasts.

That helped wipe 9 percent off Facebook's value during regular trading on Thursday.

Zynga and Facebook were among a bevy of hot tech prospects that went public in 2011 on the back of renewed dot-com mania gripping Wall Street. They, along with fellow 2011 debutante Groupon Inc, have since gone into a tailspin.

Zuckerberg, who owns just north of half a billion shares, saw $2.7 billion of his paper wealth evaporate on Thursday, taking into account the after-hours dive.

Goldman Sachs, lead adviser on the IPO and the largest institutional shareholder with 41.6 million shares or a 6.6 percent stake, shed $222 million. Fidelity, the largest U.S. fund, which owns 19.8 million shares, saw $106 million go up in smoke.

Executives told analysts on a conference call that Facebook aimed for closer integration with popular gadgets such as Apple Inc's iPad and iPhone but Zuckerberg dismissed widespread reports that it would design its own smartphone.

(Writing by Edwin Chan; Editing by Bernard Orr and Edmund Klamann)

Samsung Electronics shares jump over 4 percent after second-quarter results

Samsung Electronics shares jump over 4 percent after second-quarter results

Stock Market Predictions

SEOUL (Global Markets) - Shares in Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) surged more than 4 percent on Friday morning after the company reported a record quarterly profit.

The world's biggest technology firm by revenue posted a profit of $5.9 billion for the June quarter, as rampant sales of its Galaxy S mobile phone helped stretch its lead over Apple Inc (AAPL.O).

(Reporting by Joonhee Yu; Editing by Chris Gallagher)

Facebook's value slides by $10 billion; outlook unclear

Facebook's value slides by $10 billion; outlook unclear

Stock Market Predictions

(Global Markets) - Investors wiped $10 billion off the value of Facebook Inc on Friday, taking the recently listed shares to a new low, after the social network offered no forecast and analysts said mobile investments would put future earnings under pressure.

The 17 percent slide in the shares took Facebook's market capitalization to $48 billion -- half its IPO launch value of $100 billion in May.

The latest slide cost CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the 28-year-old who founded Facebook in his Harvard dorm room, around $2.3 billion, based on his shareholding.

The social network just beat revenue expectations on Thursday in its first quarterly earnings but the company failed to reassure investors about its future prospects.

"Facebook has established itself as an Internet utility but it might take a while for Facebook to gain Wall Street love," Citi Investment Research analysts said in a note.

Investors worried about how the social network would make money from mobile advertising had hoped that the company would signal that revenue growth was picking up.

The shares have shed around 40 percent of their value since the company's ill-starred debut at $38 on May 18.

They fell to a record low $22.28 in morning trading on Friday before recovering a little to $23.03. It was far and away the most heavily traded stock, with 52 million changing hands.

At least four brokerages, including Barclays Capital, cut their price targets on Facebook stock, although most suggested it was worth much more than current trading levels.

Created just eight years ago, Facebook continues to grow -- hitting 955 million active users a month at the end of June -- but its shares have slid since its May IPO as investors questioned a valuation of more than 50 times earnings.

MOBILE MOJO

J.P. Morgan Securities analysts said the stock could also be under pressure because some early investors will be able to sell shares from August 19, potentially flooding the market with stock.

But most focus was on the company's mobile strategy, with big questions about whether it can sustain growth as users increasingly access Facebook on mobiles, where it has found it hard to squeeze in advertisements.

Facebook only recently began to offer limited advertising on its mobile platform, so far generating little revenue.

Facebook is investing heavily in improving mobile apps and building a platform on top of which new apps can be built, but so far that has increased capital expenditure but not delivered big gains in revenue.

The company, which competes with established Web companies such as Google Inc and Yahoo Inc, said capital spending more than tripled to $413 million in the second quarter.

"Facebook is in the early stages of an important transition in its (mobile) advertising business that should drive accelerating growth and margin expansion over time," J.P. Morgan Securities analysts said.

The company ended the quarter with 543 million active monthly mobile users, up two-thirds from a year earlier but advertising views lagged user growth. Mobile access now accounts for 57 percent of total users.

The bright spot was that sponsored stories brought in much better rates than traditional ads, allowing Facebook to increase prices by 9 percent, Morgan Stanley analysts said.

A sponsored story is an advertisement that appears on a user's Facebook page and tells the user that a friend "likes" the advertiser.

Despite Facebook's slide from grace, many analysts still see the stock bouncing back.

Six analysts rate the stock a "strong buy," 11 rate it "buy,", 17 rate it a "hold", while one each rate it a "sell" and "strong sell", according to Thomson Global Markets' StarMine. The mean price target on the stock is $38.00, suggesting a 71 percent upside to Friday's low of $22.28.

Facebook's woes add to pressure at Zynga Inc, which gets nearly all of its revenue from the social platform's users. Fading fortunes of hit games such as "FarmVille" forced the company on Wednesday to slash its outlook.

(Additional reporting by Aditi Sharma in Bangalore; Editing by Tenzin Pema and Rodney Joyce)

Silicon Motion shares rise on upbeat quarterly results

Silicon Motion shares rise on upbeat quarterly results

Stock Market Predictions

(Global Markets) - Shares of Silicon Motion Technology Corp (SIMO.O) rose 17 percent in premarket trading after the chipmaker's second-quarter profit more than doubled.

Revenue for the period rose 38 percent to $69.7 million, Silicon Motion said.

The Taiwan-based fabless chipmaker designs and develops high-performance, low-power semiconductor products for the multimedia consumer electronics market.

The company said its customer Samsung Electronics Co Ltd (005930.KS) started shipping Galaxy SIII smartphones in Korea that included Silicon Motion's Long Term Evolution (LTE) transceiver chips.

Silicon Motion shares were trading at $14.77 before markets opened on Friday. The stock closed at $12.59 on the Nasdaq on Thursday.

(Reporting By Aurindom Mukherjee in Bangalore; Editing by Joyjeet Das)

Arch Coal quarterly loss beats view, stock up on outlook

Arch Coal quarterly loss beats view, stock up on outlook

Stock Market Predictions

(Global Markets) - Arch Coal Inc (ACI.N) posted a second-quarter loss, hurt by charges to close mines in the face of falling prices, but it still beat Wall Street estimates and its shares rose 12 percent.

The company, which has idled five mines in the Appalachian region to cut production, forecast an improved U.S. market for thermal coal, which is used for power generation. But it cut its sales estimate for steelmaking metallurgical coal.

Arch Coal is considering selling some non-core assets or reserves, Chief Executive John Eaves said on a conference call with analysts on Friday.

"I don't want to set an expectation that a transaction is certain to occur," Eaves added. "We know the inherent value of our assets and reserves and we don't plan to give that value away."

Arch shares were up 19 percent at $6.26 in late morning trading on the New York Stock Exchange. The stock fell to its lowest level in more than a decade on Thursday.

The quarterly loss comes at a time when the U.S. coal industry is going through a tough period, with weak demand from utilities and steelmakers and prices slumping as some power companies switch to cheaper natural gas.

Most coal companies have been forced to cut back production, especially in the high-cost Appalachian region and one, Patriot Coal Corp (PCXCQ.PK), recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Although it produced and sold less coal in the second quarter, Arch reduced its costs.

This helped to increase overall operating margins, noted Brean Murray Carret & Co analyst Lucas Pipes. "The beat was driven by the company's costs solid cost performance in its Appalachian and PRB (Powder River Basin) segment," Pipes wrote.

CEO Eaves was bullish on the prospects for thermal coal. "Summer has arrived ... bringing heat, power load and increased coal burn," he said in a statement.

"With improving coal demand and ongoing supply rationalization, we could end the year with domestic stockpiles below 175 million tons, the level at which we entered 2012."

Excluding restructuring charges to close mines and other one-time items, the company posted a loss of 10 cents per share in the quarter. Analysts had expected a loss of 18 cents per share, according to Thomson Global Markets I/B/E/S.

Following a relatively mild winter, electricity demand dropped and stockpiles of coal at power plants rose.

In addition, some utilities switched from coal to cheaper natural gas to fuel. As a result, thermal coal prices have slumped some 20 percent this year.

Arch lowered its estimate for metallurgical coal sales to 7.5 million tons this year from the 8.0 million to 8.5 million tons it had expected.

"Global coal prices are currently soft as supply growth has outpaced demand through the first half of 2012," Eaves said in the statement

Arch said global steel production declined month-over-month in June, particularly in Europe, while steel plant utilization rates in the United States fell below 75 percent in July from 80 percent in April.

But the company said China and India were on pace to surpass record coal import levels in 2011.

"As global economic growth accelerates, we expect coal markets to rebalance and tighten significantly," said Eaves.

St. Louis-based Arch trimmed its forecast for prices for Powder River basin, Western Bituminous and Appalachian coal, but slightly raised its forecast for Illinois Basin coal.

The second-quarter loss was $435.5 million, or $2.05 per share, compared with a profit of $6.3 million, or 4 cents per share, in the year-earlier quarter.

The company has idled coal-face operations at its Dugout Canyon mine in Utah for the first half of 2012 and reduced the workforce at several operations in eastern Kentucky with about 100 layoffs.

Revenue increased 8 percent to $1.1 billion, beating the average analyst estimate of $998 million, despite a 14 percent decline in sales volume compared with the second quarter of 2011.

The company produced 31.5 million tons of coal in the quarter, down from 35.5 million in the first quarter and 36.7 million in the year-earlier quarter.

(Reporting by Steve James and Matt Daily; Editing by Gerald E. McCormick, Jeffrey Benkoe, Sofina Mirza-Reid and Ted Kerr)

Ixia shares rise 26 percent on strong revenue forecast

Ixia shares rise 26 percent on strong revenue forecast

Stock Market Predictions

(Global Markets) - Shares of Ixia Inc (XXIA.O) rose 26 percent to a year high on Friday after the telecom network testing products maker forecast third-quarter revenue above Wall Street estimates on strong demand from network gear makers.

The company on Thursday forecast revenue of between $103 million and $107 million, while analysts were expecting $102.2 million, according to Thomson Global Markets I/B/E/S.

The company's second-quarter results were also ahead of estimates.

"Looking forward to the third quarter, while there's uncertainty in the macro environment that we are not immune to, we are encouraged by our momentum," Chief Executive Vic Alston said in a conference call with analysts.

Ixia counts Cisco Systems Inc (CSCO.O), NTT, Alcatel-Lucent SA (ALUA.PA), Juniper Networks Inc (JNPR.N), and Dell Inc (DELL.O) among its customers.

Mizuho Securities USA raised its price target on the company's stock to $14 from $13.

Ixia shares were up $2.44, or 18 percent, at $15.41 in midday trading on the Nasdaq. They touched a high of $16.40 earlier.

(Reporting by Chandni Doulatramani in Bangalore; Editing by Maju Samuel)

Cerner shares fall on weak bookings

Cerner shares fall on weak bookings

Stock Market Predictions

(Global Markets) - Shares of Cerner Corp (CERN.O) fell as much as 7 percent after the healthcare IT company reported quarterly order bookings below Street estimates.

Bookings in the second quarter were up 8 percent at $700.5 million, while analysts were expecting $710 million.

"The bookings were strong, but Street wanted more," Robert W. Baird & Co analyst Eric Coldwell said in a client note.

On Thursday, Cerner reported second-quarter earnings of 59 cents per share, beating analysts' estimates of 55 cents per share, according to Thomson Global Markets I/B/E/S.

However, on the same day, rival Quality Systems withdrew its full-year outlook after a weaker-than-expected start to the year owing to slowing sales of its high-margin software systems.

"Peers' unfavorable commentary and results won't help and sector sentiment is continuing a downward migration," Coldwell said.

Cerner also competes with Athenahealth Inc (ATHN.O) in the healthcare IT sector.

Baird, which lowered the price target on Cerner stock to $81 from $89, however expects a dip in the stock price to be an "opportunity for investors willing to invest in a high quality industry leader likely positioned to be the greatest share-taker over the next one to three years."

Shares of the Kansas City, Missouri-based company were trading down 6 percent at $73.30 on the Nasdaq. They touched a low of $72.50.

(Reporting by Shailesh Kuber in Bangalore; Editing by Sreejiraj Eluvangal)

Zynga shares slump on fading "Farmville" fortunes

Zynga shares slump on fading "Farmville" fortunes

Stock Market Predictions

(Global Markets) - Shares of Zynga Inc slumped 42 percent to their lowest ever on Thursday, after fading fortunes of hit games such as "FarmVille" on Facebook forced the company to slash its outlook.

The slide wiped $1.5 billion off Zynga's value, taking it to just $2.2 billion -- a far cry from the Internet gaming firm's IPO launch value of nearly $9 billion last December.

A slew of analysts cut their ratings and price targets for Zynga after it reported lower-than-expected quarterly results on Wednesday and forecast a much smaller 2012 profit.

Zynga has been hit by user fatigue for some of its long-running games and a shift in the way Facebook Inc's social platform promotes games.

"The biggest factor impacting current performance appears to be the way Facebook is surfacing gaming content on its platform," JP Morgan's Doug Anmuth wrote in a note to clients.

Surfacing refers to how a website displays content.

Facebook recently tweaked the way users find games in its app center -- giving prominence to newer titles and pushing down older games -- making it difficult for users to find some of Zynga's most popular titles.

"FarmVille", which contributed 29 percent of Zynga's second-quarter revenues, slid to 20 million users this month from a high of about 80 million in March, according to Appdata.com, a Facebook tracking service.

Zynga's weak outlook spooked Facebook investors who are waiting for the social networking company to report results for the first time on Thursday.

Zynga, which relies on Facebook for more than 90 percent of its revenue, was the most heavily traded stock on the Nasdaq on Thursday morning and the biggest percentage loser.

J.P. Morgan Securities, Citi Investment Research, Lazard Capital Markets, Stifel Nicolaus, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs downgraded Zynga's stock to "neutral," or equivalent ratings.

At least six other brokerages slashed their price targets on the stock to as low as $3.00.

On top of the drop in users for core money-making games such as "FarmVille" and "Hidden Chronicles", a new game Zynga bought in March, "Draw Something", has also not lived up to its hopes.

Prospects for games on Facebook have deteriorated as users tire of games where players manage farms, zoos and other environments, analysts say.

A shift by users to accessing Facebook through mobiles, which have less space for advertising, adds to the pressure.

"As Zynga looks to grow its footprint in the mobile category, the traditional Facebook business was expected to act as a solid foundation, but is instead showing incremental weakness," said Piper Jaffray analysts.

The woes highlight the fading fortunes of consumer Internet stocks that were once heavily bet on. This month, an investment analyst said Facebook had shed users in both the United States and Europe over the past six months.

(Reporting by Rachel Chitra and Sayantani Ghosh; Editing by Tenzin Pema and Rodney Joyce)