Telephone companies have historically been stable equity income investments.  Internet and wireless technology has changed the landscape and “telephone” became “telecom”.  These days there are telecom investment opportunities around the globe with securities traded in US markets.

Our database has 276 companies classified as “Communications Services” (telecom).  We filtered for possible telecom investment prospects using these minimal criteria:

Market-Cap > $1 billion EV/EBITDA < 10 Yield > 0% Payout Ratio < 100% Operating Margin 5 Yr Av > 0% Sales Growth 3 Yr > 0% EPS Growth 3 Yr > 0% Dividend Growth 3 Yr > 0% PEG 5 Yr Trailing < 2

From that filter, 9 telecoms emerged as worthy of further research and consideration (including validation of the information in our database).

Those companies are (ranked by descending market-cap):

China Mobil (CHL) Telefonica (TEF) Verizon (VZ) Rogers Communications (RCI) Turkcell (TKC) TELUS (TU) Portugal Telecom (PT) Telekom Austria (TKAGY) Magyar Telecom (MTA)

It is obvious merely by the names of the companies that they represent vastly different circumstances.  Frankly, we’d

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I have been positive on emerging markets for a while, maintaining that especially China and other Asian countries, as well as resource-based Latin American countries, would be the leaders of the economic recovery and stock market performance in the next upswing. These views are supported by a recent Q&A with Mark Mobius, Templeton Asset Management’s guru on emerging markets, as published in the company’s Market Views newsletter.

Emerging markets have been outperforming thus far in 2009, do you think this trend will continue for the rest of the year? Although we are optimistic about the opportunities for upside potential, it is important to realize the volatility is still with us and will be with us for some time. This means there will be periods when the markets go down as well as periods when they go up. We should therefore take advantage of

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div style="text-align: justify;"Goldman Sachs is upgrading span style="font-weight: bold;"General Electric (NYSE:GE)/span to Buy from Neutral with a $15 price target (prev. $13) as as comments reported after the close by US House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank suggest broadening support for regulatory reform that would not mandate the separation of GE Capital. While numerous uncertainties remain, Goldman is reducing their probability assumption for a costly GECS separation to 25% from 50% and this drives their higher target. Greater potential for a manageable regulatory outcome should prompt investors to focus on longer-term benefits of economic and credit stabilization to GE shares.br /br /span style="font-weight: bold;"Catalyst/spanbr /After the close, Bloomberg reported that Barney Frank indicated that GE and “manufacturers with finance businesses should be allowed to keep the units under a revision to rules that govern banking.” This seems to strengthen the view that legislative support for reform requiring GECS separation as ...

The week of June 26th was very bad to Boeing. After continued reassurance from CEO Jim McNerney that the company’s much anticipated (and previously delayed) Dreamliner 787 would be delivered by the 23rd, Boeing once again came up short. To investors, this was simply one slip-up too many… and a company that cannot fulfill promises is a company worth selling. Making matters worse, the next day, the U.S. Department of Defense terminated the land warfare weapons program headed by BA’s Integrated Defense Systems unit worth an estimated $160 billion. Thinking that there was no possible way to add more grief onto shares of Boeing, Qantas Airways canceled orders for 15 Boeing 787 Dreamliners after being “disappointed” by Boeing’s management.

Shares slid on the day of the initial 787 delay by 6.46%. On the day of the

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I have been positive on emerging markets for a while, maintaining that especially China and other Asian countries, as well as resource-based Latin American countries, would be the leaders of the economic recovery and stock market performance in the next upswing. These views are supported by a recent Q&A with Mark Mobius, Templeton Asset Management’s guru on emerging markets, as published in the company’s Market Views newsletter.

Emerging markets have been outperforming thus far in 2009, do you think this trend will continue for the rest of the year? Although we are optimistic about the opportunities for upside potential, it is important to realize the volatility is still with us and will be with us for some time. This means there will be periods when the markets go down as well as periods when they go up. We should therefore take advantage of

...

div style="text-align: justify;"Deutsche is out downgrading span style="font-weight: bold;"Sohu.com (NASDAQ:SOHU)/span to Sell from Buy with a $39 tgt.br /br /According to the firm, Sohu has succeeded in its spin-off of gaming affiliate Changyou, but they fear growth expectations of both on-line ads and games implied in Sohu's current share price could prove too optimistic.br /br /span style="font-weight: bold;"- On the advertising front, they assume that Sohu achieves only 9% YoY revenue growth in 2009 (cut from 13%), a pace they believe to be slower than consensus. /spanWhile the company claims itself capable of achieving 12-18% YoY ad revenue growth in 1Q, they are taking a cautious stance toward its online ad outlook in 09 given 1) a strong base in 2008 2) major advertising accounts seem to be cutting ad budget 3) management issues and 4) intensifying competition.br /br /span style="font-weight: bold;"- On the online gaming front, they expect revenue ...

Goldman Targeting PE With Another Fund; Current Media Unplugs IPO Plans; Tech Mahindra Taking Majority of Satyam; Victims Push For Madoff Bankruptcy; Express Scripts Buys WellPoint Unit; Citi May Sell More Japan Assets; Oil Drops on Energy Agency Forecast

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) created a $5.5 billion fund to purchase private-equity assets on the secondary market, Bloomberg reported. The GS Vintage Fund V - Goldman’s fifth private-equity-targeting fund - will acquire portfolios ranging from $1 million to $1 billion. Citing “current market conditions,” Current Media Inc., owner of youth-focused network Current TV, has withdrawn its plans for a $100 million initial public offering. “It’s ...

King Pharma [KG: 6.93, -0.02 (-0.29%)] is a specialty pharmaceutical company which recently acquired Alpharma for $1.6B and has three pending NDAs at the FDA for new drug approvals and received a complete response late last year for Remoxy (an abuse deterrent form of extended-release oxycodone) along with Pain Therapeutics [PTIE: 4.23, +0.01 (+0.24%)].

BioMedReports.com FDA and Clinical Trial Calendars

King is currently trading at around decade lows in terms of stock price at a market cap of $1.7B and enterprise value of $2.2B. Consensus analyst estimates for 2009 revenue are about $1.8B with expected EPS of $0.67, yielding a forward PE of just over 10X and price/sales ratio of about 1X.

The Alpharma acquisition diversifies King’s revenue base thanks to over $350M in annual revenue from animal health (feed additives) and over $125M in sales for pain patch Flector.

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This post is a guest contribution by Vitaliy N. Katsenelson*, author of Active Value Investing: Making Money in Range-Bound Markets and director of research at Investment Management Associates.

The stock market has dropped. Corporate profits have collapsed. And profit margins have reverted toward the mean. What is next?

Before I dive into the discussion, let me explain the chart below, which I named appropriately, “The pain of mean reversion.”

I looked at reported earnings for S&P 500 and compared them to the “average case” earnings scenario. In the “average case” scenario I took reported earnings of S&P 500 in the early 1990s and grew them at 6% – an average growth rate of GDP over the last century which happens

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a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_T9VXVyuEITg/SZERIA0Vn5I/AAAAAAAAAoU/wsvpFNnYyNA/s1600-h/valentine.jpg”img style=”float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 130px; height: 200px;” src=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_T9VXVyuEITg/SZERIA0Vn5I/AAAAAAAAAoU/wsvpFNnYyNA/s200/valentine.jpg” border=”0″ alt=”"id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5301037065747931026″ //abr /February 14 is Valentine’s Day, so if you haven’t done the shopping for your sweetheart, then you better get started. How about a gift of some shares in companies that may participate in sales of Valentines Day related products. Here are some stocks that can benefit from from this popular day, including chocolate, flowers, jewelry, greeting cards, and gift wrap.br /br /Hershey (HSY), founded in 1894, is the largest manufacturer of chocolate in North America and one of the largest chocolate and candy companies in the world. Hershey’s Kisses were invented in 1901. Hershey chocolate chips were introduced in 1928. The stock has a P/E of 27, with a favorable yield of 3.2%.br /br /Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory Inc. (RMCF) is a very low cap stock [and should therefore be considered …