• Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT) reported estimate-topping results of 84 cents a share, three cents above Zacks estimates of 81 cents, on revenues of $98.67 billion, slightly below estimates of $99.50 billion. Comparable sales eased 0.4% from last year. The firm raised fourth quarter and full-year guidance to a range of $1.08-$1.12 for the quarter and $3.57-$3.61 for the year

• Kohl's (NYSE:KSS) reported results of 63 cents a share, above Zacks estimates of 61 cents, on revenues of $4.1 billion, above Zacks projections of $4 billion

• Banking analyst Richard Bove strongly advised purchase of Bank of New York Mellon (NYSE:BK) shares, saying the firm's multiple should be twice current levels due to growth prospects

• Motorola (NYSE:MOT) is considering sale of its Home and Networks Mobility division as part of its turnaround plan. Analysts value the unit at $3-$5 billion

• Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ) said it agreed to acquire 3Com (NASDAQ:COMS) for $7.90 per share,

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Dr Stock Pick HOT News & Alerts!

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FREE Daily Stock Alerts From DrStockPick.com

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Wednesday September 30, 2009

DrStockPick.com Stock Report!

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Salon City, Inc. (PINKSHEETS: SALN) announced today that 3rd quarter sales resulting from new media offerings and August’s launch of Beauty Entertainment (BE!) Magazine has helped to contribute to the Company’s overall revenue increases as compared to same period last year.

Command Center, Inc. (OTCBB: CCNI), an emerging provider of on-demand, reliable labor solutions, today announced revenue of $5.24 million for the five-week reporting period of September 2009. The company noted that average weekly sales of $21,389 per store

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A smaller-than-expected rise in weekly jobless claims and upbeat earnings from companies helped stock markets extend their impressive run this week as investors found new reason to put money into stocks.  All stock indexes managed bigger gains as the session progressed but lost some momentum towards the end.        

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 83 points, or 0.9% and the broader S&P 500 index added 11 points, or 1.2%, to 986.75, its highest close since November 4.  The tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 16 points, or 0.8%, to close at its highest level since October 1.

The much-awaited GDP report this morning demonstrated a smaller-than-expected 1% contraction, signaling the recession is losing force. Expectations were for a 1.5% drop.

Yesterday, GE (NYSE:GE) led the Dow Jones industrial average higher after the conglomerate was upgraded to “buy" from “neutral" by Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS). The analysts at Goldman Sachs said chances of GE

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Treasury finally "unveiled" details of the much-anticipated, much-delayed and now scaled-down version of its toxic or "legacy" assets purchase program, which was announced earlier as a part of the Financial Stability Plan in February. The Public-Private Investment Program, or PPIP, will leverage private capital with government subsidies, so that the chosen investment firms can buy up the legacy assets, which have been clogging the balance sheets of the banks, making them reluctant to lend. The Treasury selected nine financial firms as partners for the program, including BlackRock Inc (BLK), Invesco Ltd (IVZ) and GE Capital Real Estate, a subsidiary of GE (GE). PIMCO (PKO), which was widely expected to be on the list, announced that it had withdrawn from the program due to related uncertainties. The nine firms chosen have been given up to three months to raise an initial $500 million ...

The holiday-shortened week saw investors pondering the depth of the economic rabbit-hole. As investors vacillated, most financial markets were characterized by a roller-coaster ride. Friday’s worse-than-expected jobs data left no doubt that the economy was in recession.

The highlights of the week’s discussions were captured on video and are included in this video-o-rama compilation. Strutting their stuff was a star-studded cast including the likes of George Soros, Hugh Hendry, Dan Greenhaus, Paul Krugman, Bill Gross, Nassim Taleb, Jeff Immelt, Stephen Roach, Bob Prechter and Marc Faber.

As an aside, the weather in Europe - where I am spending two weeks with my family in Slovenia and Switzerland - has been characterized of late by endless thunderstorms. Strikingly, the economic mood is no less despondent than that of the holiday-makers trying to escape the ominous dark clouds. But wait, is that a forecast for better days ahead?

Elsewhere, the jail

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Excessive Executive Compensation: When is Too Much, Too Much?

by Dr. Scott Brown, Education Director, Investment U

With every disclosure I receive on executive compensation coming out of failing and defunct firms it makes me sick - as an investor and citizen alike. And I’m not the only one…

Many Americans have been outraged as the CEOs and other executives responsible for the financial crisis have pocketed millions of dollars in bonuses and golden parachutes.

And rightfully so.

The recent bailouts of banks, automakers and insurance companies has brought excessive executive compensation into the public eye. And the numbers are staggering.

According to The Corporate Library, in 2008 the CEO of an S&P 500 company received an average compensation of $10.4 million. During that time the S&P 500 lost almost 40% of its value. Yet despite these declines, CEO perks grew in 2008 to an average of $336,248 - a full nine times the ...

pSpin-Offs often make for interesting investments. There are not that common, but tend to perform well, especially in their first couple of years as a stand-alone stock. This has been written about in a few areas, and specifically by investor and author Joel span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0"Greenblatt/span, as this type of stock is one of his favorite investments. Let's look at what spin-offs are and why they outperform.br /br /a href="http://www.spinoffadvisors.com/"Spin-Off span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1"Advisors/span/a, a company that specializes in research and span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2"portfolio/span management of spin-offs, define them as this:br /br //pblockquoteIn a pure spin-off, a parent company distributes 100% of its ownership interests in a subsidiary operation as a dividend to its existing shareholders. After the spin-off, there are two separate, publicly held firms that have exactly the same shareholder base. This procedure stands in contrast to an initial public offering (span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3"IPO/span), in which the parent company ...

Clean Edge co-founder Ron Pernick sees prices for renewable energy moving in the opposite direction of conventional energy markets. 

 

Ron Pernick is co-founder and managing director of Clean Edge Inc. The San Francisco area-based consultant and researcher creates indexes to track various segments of the clean energy industry. One of its benchmarks serves as the basis for the PowerShares Global Wind Energy Portfolio (NASDAQ: PWND).  

IndexUniverse.com's Murray Coleman caught up with Pernick recently at Clean Edge's offices in Portland, Ore., working on development of a new index series expected to be unveiled by year's end.

IU.com: What do the correlations between conventional energy pricing trends and alternative energy trends show now?

Pernick: Conventional energy prices are extremely volatile. Over time, you can make the case that those will continue to increase, especially oil. On the other hand, clean energy prices in general have been going down. Solar power is a

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For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL - May 7, 2009 - Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: UBS AG (UBS), Hawaiian Electric Industries, Inc. (HE), Cabela's Inc. (CAB), Banco Santander Central Hispano SA (STD) and Marvel Entertainment (MVL).

Get the most recent insight from Zacks Equity Research with the free Profit from the Pros newsletter: http://at.zacks.com/?id=4579.

Here are highlights from Wednesday's Analyst Blog:

UBS Reports Pre-Announced Loss

As pre-announced, UBS AG (UBS) reported a net loss from continuing operations attributable to UBS shareholders of CHF1.98 billion, driven by trading losses of CHF630 million at the Investment Bank as it continues to shed

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Any reader of my blog recognizes that I generally have an affinity for consumer products and retail facing stocks. In this recession, I’ve also become quite the fan of dividends as manifested in my recent investments - GE, VLO, MO, and LINE. As such, this investment idea probably comes as no surprise - Hotel REITS. 

What are Hotel REITs? Hotel REITs are a subcategory of Real Estate Investment Trusts. These are businesses which invest and (usually) operate income producing real estate. The benefit of this classification is that qualifying REITs do not need to pay corporate taxes on income which they distribute to shareholders in the form of dividends. As a result, there’s a particular incentive for these businesses to remit 100% of their earnings

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