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Oracle Matches Estimates – Analyst Blog

Zacks Market Commentaries — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 14:15:31 +0000

Oracle Corporation (ORCL) announced first quarter of FY2010 earnings per share of 29 cents, matching the Zacks Consensus Estimate. First quarter total revenues were down 5% year over year at $5.1 billion.

New software license revenues were down 17% to $1.0 billion. Technology new license revenues were $711 million, down 19% in constant currency and down 22% in U.S. dollars. The Americas declined 11%, EMEA was down 26% and Asia declined 22%. Applications for new license revenues were $317 million, unchanged from last year on a constant currency basis, and down 4% in U.S. dollars. The Americas grew by 6%, EMEA was up 3% and Asia declined 23%.

Software license updates and product support revenues were up 6% at $3.1 billion. These revenues are annual fees customers pay to receive updated versions and enhancements of their existing products. Services revenues were $909 million, down 18% in constant currency and down 22% in U.S. dollars.

Operating income was up 14% to $1.7 billion and operating margin was up 590 basis points to 34%. Oracle increased operating income by $219 million over last year’s first quarter. Operating income on non-GAAP basis was up 7% at $2.3 billion with a margin of 46%, which is the highest since its inception. The real contributors to the robust operating margin have been license updates and product support revenues, which comprised a larger portion of the revenues in the quarter and which generally realize a higher margin than new license revenues.

The effective tax rate was 28.0%, which was below guidance of 29% due largely to lower than expected interest income, which is generally taxed in jurisdictions with higher rates. In the first quarter, the company repurchased 11.4 million shares at an average price of $21.24 per share for a total of $243 million.

Oracle generated $8.5 billion in free cash flow during the trailing four quarters, growing 14% over the same period last year. This is the highest free cash flow in the company’s history. The company had $20.6 billion in cash and investments at the end of the quarter. The increase resulted largely from the $4.5 billion debt offering completed early in the quarter and $3.7 billion of operating cash flow generated this quarter.

Long-term borrowings stood at 51.8% of shareowner’s equity at the end of the quarter. Days sales outstanding improved again this quarter from 54 days last year to 46 days this year, a testament to the quality of its receivables, the quality of customers, and the effectiveness of collection efforts, as well as a result of product mix and timing benefits.

For the second quarter of FY2010, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for earnings per share stands at 35 cents on revenue of $5.72 billion.

Oracle Corporation develops, manufactures, markets and distributes computer software that helps corporations to manage and grow their businesses. Oracle is the world’s second largest software company with a presence in 145 countries. It has become a dominant provider of relational database management systems and is also emerging as a significant player in the application software, middleware and development tools markets. Major competitors include International Business Machines Corporation (IBM), Microsoft Corporation (MSFT) and SAP AG (SAP).
Read the full analyst report on "ORCL"
Read the full analyst report on "IBM"
Read the full analyst report on "MSFT"
Read the full analyst report on "SAP"
Zacks Investment Research

FDA Play: Redefining Breast Cancer Detection (OTC:LLBO)

Michael Vlaicu — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 04:54:46 +0000

Lifeline Biotechnologies Inc. (Public, PINK:LLBO) With the recent gains in Hard to Treat Diseases Inc. (PINK:HTDS) and BioElectronics Corp. (OTC:BIEL), investors were left hungry for more undervalued, high potential biotech companies #8212; Then came LifeLine Biotechnologies Inc (OTC:LLBO). As technology continues to redefine the modern era of medical advancements, certain companies will stand apart from the rest, [...]

Learning New Languages Is Fun And Profitable

Joshua Hayes — Mon, 04 May 2009 11:28:11 +0000

Rosetta Stone is a company most of us have been familiar with since around 2005. However, since then, it has become an amazing powerhouse of earnings and sales growth. Recently, RST came public and when it came public it brought with it some amazing fundamental growth as a provider of interactive language [...]

Tredegar Corp. – Aggressive Growth – Zacks Rank Buy

Zacks Market Commentaries — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 05:00:00 +0000

Tredegar Corp. (TG) recently shocked Wall Street with its latest earnings report. Shares are climbing as the stock hits a critical level.

Company Description

Tredegar Industries, Inc. is engaged in the manufacturing of plastic films, vinyl extrusions and aluminum extrusions. The company also has interests in various technologies, including rational drug design research and computer software.

Tredegar's materials are primarily for personal and household care products, and packaging and surface protection applications. The company has operations in North America, South America, Europe, and Asia.

EPS Almost Double Consensus

On Feb 12 Tredegar announced its forth-quarter results that included earnings per share of 30 cents, nearly double the 16 cents estimated by analysts.

Income from continuing manufacturing operations was up $10.2 million, up 62% from $6.3 million.

Estimates Are Up

Full-year estimates rose following the most recent earnings report. The consensus for 2009 is now 83 cents up from 74 cents. Estimates for next year are averaging 78 cents, up from 73 cents.

The Chart

Shares of TG have some short-term momentum building as they approach resistance just above $18. Take a look at the chart below.

Zacks Investment Research

The No. 1 Way to Buy Gold Now… It’s NOT Gold Mining Stocks

Daily Wealth — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 13:00:00 +0000

BBy Dan Ferris, editor, Extreme Value/BBRBR Real investors almost never buy gold stocks.BRBR Mind you, I'm not talking about traders. I'm talking about investors. I'm talking about people who know the value of owning a great business for decades... people who have proven they can intelligently deploy capital and compound wealth at double-digit rates for a generation. Great investors like Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger, and Peter Lynch usually laugh at the thought of buying equity in a gold mining business.BRBR Mining companies use enormous machines and armies of people to dig gigantic holes and pull tons of dirt and rocks out of them. They have relatively small amounts of cash on hand and lots of inventory, property, and equipment. They sell a commodity that can be produced by any of their competitors. There's no premium brand name in raw gold. All these attributes make mining a low-margin business with lots of risks.BRBR Real investors avoid low-margin businesses. They avoid lots of risks. Real investors are drawn to businesses that require little up front investment and generate thick profit margins. Take Microsoft, a stock I've discussed in these pages before...BRBR Microsoft is the premium brand in the high-margin business of computer software. Its net margin – the money left over after all expenses are taken out – is consistently greater than 25%. Microsoft doesn't have to invest in expensive new Caterpillar excavators or dump trucks. It's a terrific business with a lasting competitive advantage that real investors love.BRBR But real investors should be buying gold stocks by the truckload right now – just not your typical gold mining stocks... If you want to make a fortune in the next few years, you should be buying "prospect generators."BRBR Prospect generators don't take the risk of doing actual mining work. They don't spend money on expensive drilling. They find someone willing to take all the risk in exchange for the opportunity to earn their way into a project. Prospect generators just employ a few smart guys who know their geology. They find gold, get a partner – and hardly spend a penny of their own money.BRBR And right now a lot of these little gold stocks are dirt cheap. Investors are panicked and selling every kind of stock there is, regardless of fundamental value.BRBR The best ones are safer than most stocks, gold or otherwise. That's because a few of these prospect generators are selling for just a little bit over the value of the cash and securities they hold. Some days, they sell for less... which means you're getting the cash for a discount and the gold for free.BRBR Buying a pile of cash AND a pile of gold, with more than a dozen chances of making several times your money, sounds like a much better idea to me than buying a gold ETF, or a big cap gold miner, or risky gold futures... or even gold coins, if you're trying to make as much money as you can, while keeping it as safe as possible.BRBR It's hard to find a safer combination than cash and gold these days... and right now you can get both – along with tremendous upside – with a few select prospect generators.BRBR Good investing,BRBR Dan FerrisBRBRdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/dailywealth/rss?a=vU64AqxXVSI:eOOn_4LrtKY:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/dailywealth/rss?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/dailywealth/rss?a=vU64AqxXVSI:eOOn_4LrtKY:7Q72WNTAKBA"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/dailywealth/rss?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/dailywealth/rss?a=vU64AqxXVSI:eOOn_4LrtKY:V_sGLiPBpWU"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/dailywealth/rss?i=vU64AqxXVSI:eOOn_4LrtKY:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/dailywealth/rss?a=vU64AqxXVSI:eOOn_4LrtKY:gIN9vFwOqvQ"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/dailywealth/rss?i=vU64AqxXVSI:eOOn_4LrtKY:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/dailywealth/rss?a=vU64AqxXVSI:eOOn_4LrtKY:TzevzKxY174"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/dailywealth/rss?d=TzevzKxY174" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/dailywealth/rss?a=vU64AqxXVSI:eOOn_4LrtKY:69LSlcDtVW8"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/dailywealth/rss?d=69LSlcDtVW8" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/dailywealth/rss?a=vU64AqxXVSI:eOOn_4LrtKY:qj6IDK7rITs"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/dailywealth/rss?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~r/dailywealth/rss/~4/vU64AqxXVSI" height="1" width="1"/

eDOORWAYS Corp. (EDWY.PK) Extends Services to Experts

QualityStocks — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 12:44:14 +0000

eDOORWAYS Corporation offers a community for users to fill out a personal profile and rating of oneself based upon their relative experience in a number of programmed categories. eDOORWAYS knows that everyone is good at something and that there are many people who could be called “experts” on a number of topics. By [...]

Keep Performance Health Technologies, Inc. (PFMH.OB) on Radar

QualityStocks — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 13:12:11 +0000

Performance Health Technologies, Inc. is focused on developing and marketing performance evaluation and rehabilitation products that monitor and guide exercise while giving instantaneous motivational feedback. For nearly a decade, the company’s computer and medical experts have innovatively combined advanced software and medical technology to create MotionTrack™, a versatile proprietary technology platform. MotionTrack technology is the core [...]

Keep Performance Health Technologies, Inc. (PFMH.OB) on Radar

QualityStocks — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 13:12:11 +0000

Arizona Stocks

Fred Fuld — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 05:50:00 +0000

Did you know that Arizona has helium? As a matter of fact Arizona is home to some of the richest helium containing gas in the world. A recent increase in the value of helium caused great interest in the quest for this gas.

But there is much more in Arizona than Helium; currently Arizona produces 200 barrels of oil and 1 million cubic feet of gas everyday from wells around the state. Additionally Arizona produces the most non-fuel mineral in the country.

Other interesting facts about Arizona are:

1. Arizona produced more than 60% of copper mined in the U.S in 2007.
2. Arizona’s copper industry generated a combined revenue for the state of $4.719 Billion in 2006.
3. The mining industry employs 22,000 people.
4. Arizona’s 2007 total gross state product was $247,028 million.
5. Arizona has passed legislation requiring that 15% of its energy come from renewable sources by the year 2025.
6. Sun shines in the state 85% of the time, which makes it very appealing to solar energy.
7. One of Arizona’s major crops is lettuce, it produces over 1 million metric tons per year.
8. Arizona does not observe Daylight Savings Time
9. The Grand Canyon is one of Arizona’s major touristic attractions.
10. Arizona’s estimated population is 6 million.

The next 10 stock companies are headquartered in Arizona with market caps of over $1 billion.

Freeport McMoRan Copper & Gold (FCX) explores, and mines properties in North America, South America, Indonesia, and Africa. The stock has a PE of 10.69, PEG of 0.83, and pays a yield of 2%.

Southern Copper Corp, (PCU) is engaged in the production, and sell of copper, molybdenum, zinc, silver, lead and gold. The stock has a PE of 9.86, PEG of 8.41, and it pays a yield of 9.60%.

First Solar Inc. (FSLR) designs, makes and markets solar electric equipment. The stock has a PE of 90.87, and a PEG of 1.24.

Apollo Group Inc. (APOL) and its subsidiaries are in the business of providing educational programs at levels from high school to university. The stock has a PE OF 31.08, and a PEG of 1.57.

Microchip Technology Inc (MCHP) makes and sells semiconductor products for multiple applications. The stock has a PE of 23.3 and a PEG of 1.53. It pays a yield of 4.10%.

Allied Waste Ind. (AW) is a waste management company , providing the following services from collection to recycling and disposal of nonhazardous waste. The stock has a PE of 17.99, and a PEG of 1.21.

Avnet Inc (AVT) is in the business of distribution of computer software and different electronic components. The stock has a PE of 9.45, and a PEG of 0.61.

ON semiconductor Corp. (ONNN) makes and sells power and data management around the world. The stock has a PE of 17.95 and a PEG of 0.96.

Pinnacle West Capital Corp. (PNW) is in the business of producing, transporting and delivering electricity in the United States. The stock has a PE of 10.34, a PEG of 3.39 and pays a yield of 6.10%.

Petsmart Inc. (PETM) sells foods and goods for animals. It also provides different services. The stock has a PE of 16.77 and a PEG of 1.04. It pays a yield of 0.50%.

Check out stocks from some other states: Hawaii stocks, Alaska stocks, and Oregon stocks.

Author does not own any of the above.

By Stockerblog.com

Sonic Solutions (SNIC) Helps Bring Hollywood into Your Home

QualityStocks — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 13:41:52 +0000

Headquartered in Santa Clara, California, Sonic Solutions develops and markets computer software related to digital media for consumer and professional end users. Founded in 1986, and trading on the NASDAQ, their software and services enable the creation, design, management, and delivery of data, photographs, audio, interactive features, and video in digital formats. They enable this [...]

Performance Health Technologies, Inc. (PFMH.OB) is “One to Watch”

QualityStocks — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 12:30:00 +0000

Computer-Software-Enterprise Group (CNQR)

Joshua Hayes — Thu, 22 May 2008 14:42:41 +0000

When going long any stock in the portfolios that I run I demand growth. Growth of everything that history has proven is needed for a stock to go on a huge monster run. This weekend, I found many stocks that are full of high-growth characteristics and wanted to start with a gem from the Computer-Software-Enterprise group which [...]