Shares of Colorado-based MarkWest Energy Partners (MWE) were up as much as an additional percentage point today following a 6.3% gain in Thursday's trading. The natural gas gathering and processing master limited partnership (MLP) has seen its unit price soar 78% since March.MarkWest has come back strongly from a rocky second half of 2008, in which there were doubts regarding its ability to sustain distribution levels in the face of weak commodity prices and reduced access to credit. Those concerns have largely been laid to rest following the partnership's improved liquidity position and growing signs of vitality in the credit and equity markets.We believe that MarkWest's Marcellus joint venture with NGP Midstream & Resources (and the concurrent credit facility expansion) and the recent senior notes offering adequately address its near-to-medium term liquidity needs. Additionally, the recent formation of a separate joint venture ...

Shares of Carnival Corporation & plc (CCL, CUK) traded higher today following the company's release of second-quarter results.Although second-quarter results exceeded expectations, we have lowered our full-year estimates, partially due to increased fuel prices going forward.While the quarterly results benefited from better-than-expected pricing on close-in bookings, we caution investors that this does not mean that pricing was strong. Rather, the pricing trends simply exceeded management's low expectations. The company is still cutting prices, relative to last year, in an attempt to boost occupancy.The shares have traded nearly 10% higher today by essentially delivering results that cleared an already lowered bar.Further, the fact that management lowered its full-year earnings outlook, despite the better-than-expected second quarter results, highlights the significant and unpredictable impact of fuel prices on the company's operations.Even though Carnival has taken steps to reduce ...

Shares of Satyam Computer Services Limited (SAY) have soared nearly 23% in early trading today following a buy-rated coverage initiation by a sell-side firm. Yesterday, the stock had risen 33.8% in an apparent response to the company's release of unaudited financials indicating profitability for its December quarter. The company also stated that it was profitable for both the months of January and February of 2009.SAY recently announced the appointment of the four nominee directors of Venturbay Consultants Private Limited to the board of directors of the Company, effective as of May 27, 2009. Accordingly, the Board now comprises ten directors, including six directors appointed in January by the Central Government.Earlier on May 5th, 2009, Satyam announced that Venturbay Consultants Private Limited, a subsidiary controlled by Tech Mahindra Limited, had been allotted 30,27,64,327 shares of the Company -- or thirty one percent (31%) of the ...

Shares of Marriott (MAR) have rallied approximately 85% from the lows reached in early March. Shares of Starwood (HOT) have climbed even higher, rallying roughly 150% since early March. Shares of other companies in the industry, including Intercontinental Hotels Group (IHG) and Wyndham Worldwide (WYN), have made similar moves. Given the current state of industry fundamentals, and our expectation that operating metrics will continue to deteriorate, we consider the magnitude of these moves to be excessive.Revenue per available room, or RevPAR, is a key operating metric in the lodging industry. This metric is derived by multiplying the occupancy percentage of a hotel over a given period by the average daily room rate, or ADR, over that same period. Changes in either occupancy or ADR will impact RevPAR, but with different implications for bottom-line profitability.The charts below present the weekly year-over-year changes ...

Shares of LoopNet, Inc. (LOOP) have traded higher in recent weeks after hitting a low in early March. The company reported first-quarter results yesterday after the close, and reinforced several reasons why we believe a lower valuation is appropriate for the shares at this time.First, key operating metrics have now steadily weakened for four consecutive quarters. Most important among these, in our opinion, is the fact that the number of paying members has declined at an increasing year-over-year rate in each of these periods. During the first quarter, the number of paying members was down 15.8% versus the year-ago period.Second, we expect that transaction volume in the commercial real estate industry will remain constricted in the near-term. We anticipate that weak operating fundamentals and tight credit availability will create a wide bid-ask spread, as owners are reluctant to sell at what they consider to ...

Shares of Xilinx Inc. (XLNX, Buy) are lower in early trading today following its release of Q4 and fiscal 2009 results yesterday after market close. Q4 revenues and EPS came ahead of consensus expectations and the lower end of the Q1 revenue guidance is also higher than the mid-point of current consensus estimates.The company guided Q1 revenue of +/- 4% relative to Q4 revenues of $395 million with gross margin expectation of 61% - 63%, roughly flat with Q1 results. The company expects growth from the Asia-Pacific region and Japan, with declines in Europe and North America. XLNX is also implementing a two-phase restructuring during the current fiscal year, with Phase 1 having an immediate impact of $11-$13 million in charges in the June quarter.During Q4, new product sales decreased 6% sequentially, with mainstream and base products experiencing sequential declines of 22% and 20%, ...

Shares of Dendreon Corp. (DNDN) jumped 38 percent last Friday and another 13% in early morning trading today. However, we don't see any clear rationale for the rally at this point of time. We believe investors are looking ahead to long-awaited data on the company's experimental Provenge vaccine to treat advanced prostate cancer, but we are cautious about the final results anticipated by the end of April. As a reminder, Dendreon's lead drug candidate Provenge is under phase III IMPACT confirmatory study for prostate cancer under a special protocol assessment (SPA) with the FDA. Provenge is a therapeutic vaccine.Previous two phase III studies generated mixed results. Study D9901 showed that Provenge approached, but did not meet its primary end point of showing a significant delay in time to disease progression (p=0.052, HR=1.4). However, Provenge showed a statistically significant median survival benefit (secondary endpoint) in ...

Shares of Research In Motion (RIMM) were up more than 21% after the close on Thursday as the company reported fourth-quarter results that topped consensus estimates.  We maintain our buy rating as the company continues to outperform all our benchmark parameters, in particular operating cash generation.  The total net cash was $2.24 billion at the close of the company's fiscal 2009 reporting period.Revenues for Q4 $3.46 billion, up 24.5% from $2.78 billion in the previous quarter and up 84% from $1.88 billion in the same quarter of last year. Net income was $518.3 million, or 90 cents per share diluted, compared with net income of $396.3 million, or $0.69 per share diluted, in the prior quarter and net income of $412.5 million, or $0.72 per share diluted, in the same quarter last year.For full fiscal year, ending February 28, 2009, sales of $11.07 ...