Yesterday, independent energy exploration and production (E&P) company Cabot Oil and Gas (COG) reported better-than-expected third-quarter results, mainly driven by increased gas production in its North region. Earnings per share, excluding non-recurring items, came in at 41 cents, outperforming the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 37 cents.  However, on a year-over-year basis, Cabot’s adjusted earnings per share declined 29.3% (from 58 cents to 41 cents), while revenue was down 15.4% to $207.0 million. The decline from the year-ago quarter can be attributed to lower commodity price realizations.  Volume Growth Continues  Overall production volumes during the quarter were 25.5 billion cubic feet equivalent (Bcfe), up more than 5% from the previous-year period. Natural gas volumes were up 5.2% year-over-year to 24.2 billion cubic feet (Bcf) and liquids volumes were up 11.6% to 231 thousand barrels (MBbl).  Strength in natural gas production was driven mainly by the North ...

Cabot Oil and Gas (COG), an independent Houston-based oil and gas exploration company, reported its recent success in producing from horizontal wells. The company recently completed four horizontal wells in the Marcellus Shale and East Texas areas.

Teel 8H, the first of the recently completed Marcellus horizontal wells, had an initial production rate of 10.3 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) with a strong 30-day average rate of 9.8 MMcf/d. The company is planning to spud 18 additional horizontal wells through the rest of 2009.

The second of Cabot's horizontal wells -- and its first at Minden, Texas -- witnessed an initial production rate of 9.5 MMcf/d with a 30-day average rate of 7.9 MMcf/d. The company initiated an effort to exploit the horizontal Pettet at County Line oil reservoir to cope with the near-term softening in natural gas price outlook.

The remaining two of Cabot's completed confirmation

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NetScout Systems, Inc. (

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Clarium Capital ManagementClarium Capital | Peter Thiel Holdings AnalysisThis post is being written as part of my Investment Securities Tool which analyzes the holdings of hedge fund managers.Clarium is a $6 billion global macro hedge fund run by Peter Thiel, the co-founder of PayPal. Although they had a rough July (-6.8%), Clarium is still up over 45% year to date. Assets under management have recently ballooned to the highest amount in Clarium's history. It will be interesting to see how effective Clarium will be at deploying this new capital.Now, to the 13F. I actually hesitated even doing a 13F analysis on Clarium Capital simply because when I say they are a global macro fund, I really mean it. The 13F they filed with ...

There is not that much going on with respect to earnings right now. As of the end of last week, just a single company had formally reported its third quarter results. Estimate revisions activity has also slowed to a crawl, but where there has been revisions, the changes have not been pretty.

Looking forward to the third quarter, it looks like it should be broadly similar to the second quarter in terms of median growth. For the S&P 500 as a whole, 6.23% growth is expected. However if you factor in about a 3% positive surprise then we are roughly inline with the second quarter.

In terms of sector performance, the general rank ordering is similar. Energy is expected to far out perform all other sectors with growth of 33.3%. Then there is a tight grouping of Industrials, Health Care and Tech between 10.3% and 11.8% growth. Financials (-10.4%) and

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Looking forward to the third quarter, it looks like it should be broadly similar to the second quarter in terms of median growth. For the S&P 500 as a whole, 6.12% growth is expected. However if you factor in about a 3% positive surprise then we are roughly inline with the second quarter.

In terms of sector performance, the general rank ordering is similar. Energy is expected to far out perform all other sectors with growth of 33.3%. Then there is a tight grouping of Industrials, Health Care and Tech between 11.0 and 11.8% growth. Financials (-9.9%) and Consumer Discretionary (-2.7%) are once again expected to be the weakest performers.

Some of the factors which should help median EPS growth are share repurchases, which though have slowed in recent months, will still reflect what happened last year. Oddly, increased share counts will also help boost EPS among the Financials. Since

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Before turning our attention to the third quarter, let’s recap what happened in the second quarter.

A total of 483 firms, or 96.6% of the S&P 500, have reported. Aside from the Financials and Discretionary firms, the results are encouraging. Positive surprises beat disappointments by a 2.5:1 ratio, which is only slightly below recent historical norms. The median surprise is also inline with recent history at 3.15%.

The median year-over-year EPS growth rate of 9.38% is wonderful news for the market. It indicates that the "typical" firm in the S&P 500 is still growing its EPS at a solid rate.

In terms of median growth, Energy took the gold (+25.4%), with Tech (+21.6%) taking silver and Telecom (+15.5%) bronze. The Financials were clearly the weakest, down 18.2%. Consumer Discretionary was the only other sector to post negative growth, falling 4.2%. (There are still a handful of Discretionary firms left to

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We are coming to the end of the second quarter earnings season. Five of the 10 sectors have all their results in and two more have more than 95% in. Most of the remaining firms are Retailers with quarters ending in July rather than June.

The results for the 461 firms that have reported are mixed; encouraging in median EPS growth terms, but downright awful in terms of total net income growth. Aside from the Financials and Discretionary firms, however, the results are encouraging.

Positive surprises are leading disappointments by a 2.4:1 ratio, which is only slightly below recent historical norms. The median surprise is also inline with recent history at 3.08%.

The median year-over-year EPS growth rate of 9.33% is wonderful news for the market. And it looks like it will probably hold up. The median expected EPS growth rate for the firms that are yet to report

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In China, 8 is considered a lucky number. As of Friday, 8/8/08, we were 88.8% done with the second quarter earnings season. The results have been mixed; encouraging in median EPS growth terms, but downright awful in terms of total net income growth.

Positive surprises are leading disappointments by a 2.4:1 ratio, which is only slightly below recent historical norms. The median surprise is also inline with recent history at 3.09%.

The median year-over-year EPS growth rate of 9.45% is wonderful news for the market. And it looks like it will probably hold up. Given the expectations for those that have yet to report that seems possible. The median expected EPS growth rate for the firms that are yet to report is 16.9%. Given the propensity for positive surprises to outnumber disappointments, on a median EPS basis, double-digit growth is possible.

Energy is finished reporting and currently holds the

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