Baird Equity Research Upgraded Bank Of America Corp Stock

Baird Equity Research suggests a Buy on Bank of America stock, while upgrading SunTrust to Neutral.

Bank of America Corp. stock has been raised to Outperform rating, similar to a Byrating at Baird Equity research firm. David A George, Evan Marks and Garrett A Holland, analysts at the sell-side firm revealed the rating upgrade in a research note with a title “From Euphoria to Panic in a Week.”

Investors are recommended to use the current sentiments and pullback in the stock market to shut their short position and buying BofA stocks. Bank of America’s tangible book-value’s discounted valuation shows that the stock has a sufficient margin of growth and safety in its book value. This is believed to increase the shares value in the non-existence of interest rate increase by Fed and until potential growth viewpoint improves.

The report discusses the much addressed problem of undervaluing the interest rate option. Shareholders are suggested to buy bank stocks, however the consensus on increase of increase rate is that it will going to be announced. This shows that the American bank’s net interest income might drop below the quarterly run rate of $10 billion. So as to battle the issue of low interest rate, the bank is looking to adopt cost cutting steps in the coming year and enhance its return. BofA, like other large banks that find it difficult to enhance their bottom line, has been on cost cutting path for quite a long time now.

As much as the regulatory capital is concerned, however it’s less than the bank’s peer, the experts believed that the bank’s shareholders should accept the deliberate pace of capital return. A stock price target of $18 on the company’s stock for the upcoming 12 to 18 months is expected. With the improvement in macro level environment, BofA is most likely to enhance its loan growth and increase its earnings by 25 cents per share, if the interest rate increases by almost 100 basis points.

In news, the research report also upgraded SunTrust Inc. stock to a Neutral. Because of improving loan growth and operating leverage, the bank is recommended to extend its valuation to approximately 13 times the fiscal year 2016 EPS.

Recently, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods upgraded Bank of America. Christopher Mustacio, an analyst now assigns an Outperform rating to the company’s stock with $20 price target.

According to the analysts polled by Bloomberg, 25 suggest a Buy, while only 3 recommend a Sell. The twelve month consensus stock price target stands at $19.36.

JP Morgan All Set to Report Second Quarter Earnings Today

The article discusses the earnings whispers for JP Morgan, as the firm prepares to release its second-quarter results before the opening bell today.

JP Morgan Chase & Co. is scheduled to report its second quarter earnings for fiscal year 2015 today. Both the top line and bottom line estimates look positive for the bank, as it most likely to surpass the consensus forecasts for both these figures in this quarter.                                 

According to Earningswhispers.com says JP Morgan is most likely to post earnings of $1.50 per share for the quarter, surpassing the Street estimates by almost 0.05%. On the other hand, Estimize.com estimates average revenue of approximately $24.67 billion for the period, expecting the company to report more than the Street estimate of $241 million. The Street believes the bank to report a year over year decline of 8.98% in earnings and 3.63% year over year decline in sales for the second quarter.               

JP Morgan Chase & Co. reported earnings of $1.60 per share for first quarter of fiscal year 2015, beating the analysts’ expectation by nearly $309 million. During the last eight quarters, the bank was able to beat the Streets estimates seven times, and has surpassed the top line forecasts 5 times.

Majority of analysts are bullish on the stock of JP Morgan. Out of 40 analysts having coverage on JP Morgan stock, 29 gave it a Buy, while the remaining assigned a Hold. The analysts gave an average twelve month stock price target of $71.91, demonstrating an upside potential of 5.61% over the latest closing price.

According to some analysts, the company is expected to report earnings of $1.45 per share, a decline of 7.4% year over year. Earnings per share in the previous quarter were reported at $1.58. On the other hand, revenue is most likely to arrive t $24.42 billion, a decrease of almost 100 basis points. In the previous quarter, it was recorded at $24.06 billion. In the meantime, operating income is forecasted to be $9.02 billion.

JP Morgan’s consumer and community banking segment is most likely to generate robust results this period, however the investment banking segment is most likely to see revenue decline.

With an optimistic sentiment in the stock market, JP Morgan Chase & Co. stock was up 1.42% to $69.06 at market close on Tuesday July 14. As per Bloomberg terminal, 40 analysts covered the bank stock, out of which 29 suggested a Buy. The investment bank has 52 week low and high of $67.76 and $69.10, respectively. The company has $248.90 billion of market capitalization.

Cowen and Company gave outperform rating to Plug Power stock

Cowen and Company reiterated their rating of outperform on Plug Power Inc. shares on Thursday in a research note. Currently, the company has $3.50 stock price target.
The analysts at Cowen & Capital said in a statement, “Management, noted that large shipments were made this quarter to several large customers like Wal-Mart and Kroger. 175 of the 419 GenDrive units shipped in the quarter went to a new customer…Management estimates that by the end of 2016 existing customer penetration should be around 25 percent to 30 percent, while new customer penetration will be around 6% to 7%.,”
Numerous analysts have also weighed on stock of Plug Power Inc. Roth Capital analysts assigned stock price target of $2.60 on company’s share and suggested a rating of Hold on Tuesday in a research note. Dougherty & Co. analysts also covered the stock and set Buy rating along with $3.70 target price on Plug Power stock. Lastly, FBR & Co. downgraded stock of the company to $6.50 from $8 and assigned outperform rating on the company’s stock on March 24.
Plug Power announced its 1QFY15 earnings on Monday 11th May. The company posted earnings of $0.07 per share for the quarter covering from January to March 2015 surpassing consensus estimate of 6 cents by 1 cent. The company also posted $9.40 million in revenue for the period as compared to $18.13 million estimated by analysts. Plug Power’s revenue for the quarter was up by 67.9% on year over year basis. On the whole, analysts expect the company will report 22 cents in earnings per share for fiscal year 2015.
Plug Power Inc. shares opened at $2.61 on Monday May 18 reached day high of $2.62 and closed at $2.58 after going red by 1.15%. The company’s share price is up by 3.88% to $2.68 during pre-market trading session today as of 7:22 AM EDT.
Regarding services of GenCare, the company had almost 5,500 GenDrive unit  and eight infrastructure sites of hydrogen  in the quarter service contract versus 3,000 GenDrive units and zero hydrogen infrastructure sites in the same quarter previous year.
The fuel cell maker has 1 year low and high of $2.32 and $6.47. The stock has 50 day and 200 day moving average of $2 and $3, respectively. Plug Power‘s has $452.59 million of market capitalization.
Plug Power Inc. manufactures and design fuel cell systems and provides alternative energy emphasized on development, design and manufacture and commercializing of fuel cell systems for the industry.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. downgrades Deere & Company stock

JPMorgan downgrades Deere & Company to Underweight from Neutral, reducing the stock price target from $84 from $90, quoting  liquidity crunch for farmers as the major reason.

JP Morgan revealed the meeting details with several participants of industry including farmers, dealers and industry experts. The sell side company demoted Deere & Company to Underweight from Neutral mentioning difficult times for the industry and said that the equipment manufacturer of agricultural industry is expected to get impacted sharply. The firm also reduces its stock price target to $84 from previous $90.

While talking about the situation of farmers’, Ann Duignan analyst at JP Morgan said, “We believe it was clear from what we heard that the industry is currently in dire straits with the potential for a liquidity crunch for farmers into 2016.” Moreover she said that the dealers also acknowledged that there are a lot of used HP Deere tractors in company’s inventory, and this is expected to impact the sales of new tractors in the coming years.

Ms. Duignan also revised her earnings guidance for Deer &Co. as they believe that the agriculture industry will be under pressure in the coming year. She cut her fiscal year 2015 earnings estimate to $5.2 from $5.28 per share. She also reduced her fiscal year 2016 earnings estimate to $4.2 from $5.27 per share.

Recently, the company also noted that the United States Department of Agriculture’s grain stock, total 7.75 billion bushels of US corn stock increased by 11% in year over year basis. Majority of farmers kept the last year’s crop, hopeful that the price will reach a new and attractive level, but as they shrub their corn in the perfect condition, the mixture of these fresh crops with old burdensome stocks is expected to decrease the prices.

As per Tractorhouse.com, there are over 6 thousand Deere, 175 HP+ tractors used less than 4 years available in North America for sale. This shows roughly 60% of altogether used 175 HP+ tractors. The company applies 20 times multiple on its expected fiscal year 2016 earnings in order to reach $84 of new stock price target.

As per the survey conducted by Bloomberg, Out of 23 analysts, 5 gave Buy rating, 10 of them assigned Hold rating, while remaining 8 recommended Sell rating to the stock of the company. The twelve month consensus mid-point price target stood at $85.33 that shows a downside potential of almost 4.3% as compared to current stock price of the company.

The stock price was down 3.34% to $89.13 at market close on Friday May 15.

Plug Power First Quarter earnings report for FY15

Plug Power reported its first quarter earnings and posted earnings per share of 7 cents in line with analysts estimate.

Plug Power reported its first quarter earnings for fiscal year 15 on Monday May11. The company posted 7 cents in earnings per share in line with Thomson Reuters consensus forecast of 7 cents per share, as reported by Stock Market News. The company also reported $9.40 million n revenue for the period as compared to $18.13 million of consensus estimate. The revenue of the company was up 68% on year over year basis.

For t full fiscal year 2015, the company provided revenue guidance of $100 million against consensus forecast of $103 million. The fuel cell manufacturer said that these sales will incline throughout the year with almost 35% to 40% of the yearly revenue estimated in the first six months of current fiscal year.

Chief Executive Officer and President of Plug Power, Andy Marsh said, “The backlog for our products and services continued to grow in the first quarter. This has provided us with a high level of confidence in meeting this year’s financial projections”.

During the first quarter, Plug Power earned $9.4 million in revenue; this includes 1 hydrogen station and 265 GenDrive units. Furthmore, the company shipped almost 419 GenDrive units and progress its construction on 7 different hydrogen fueling stations. The amount of these shipments will be reflected in revenue part in the Q2 of fiscal year 2015. The Company shipped around 175 units out of these 419 GenDrive units to a new customer.

Related to GenCare services, Plug Power had around 5,500 unit of GenDrive and 8 infrastructure sites of hydrogen as of March 31 service contract against 3,000 unit of GenDrive and no hydrogen infrastructure sites in the similar quarter last year.

Total administrative costs for the quarter were $10.7 million compared to $5.1 million in the prior year quarter.

Plug Power stock opened at $2.43 on Monday. The company has twelve month low and high of $2.40 and $6.47, respectively. The stock has 50 day and 200 day moving average of $2 and $3, respectively. Plug Power had $421.38 of market capitalization.

Plug Power stock was up 4.94% to $2.55 at market close on Monday.

Petrobras Depend On Vale CEO for Corruption Investigation

Will the appointment of Vale CEO, Murilo Ferreira, as the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Petrobras will help the company tackle the corruption scandal.

Murilo Ferreira, CEO of Vale SA has taken more responsibilities followed by his take over as Chairman of Board of Directors at Brazilian Oil Company, Petroleo Brasileiro Petrobras on Wednesday. The Brazilian oil company is the most indebted energy company in the world, and is combating to come out of the largest bribery and corruption scandal that occurred in October last year.

The appointment of Mr. Ferreira takes place together with the 10 board members appointment. They arrived just after one week after the company logged $15 billion impairment charges.

The appointment of Mr. Ferreira was a good sign for the company as he will support to enhance the Petrobras and Vale relations.

As per Bloomberg, Aldemir Bendine, CEO of Brazilian Oil Companies related to the news of appointment said, “We’ve received from the government the prerogative to work with a board that’s more geared toward the market, with more technical market experience and without the participation of members of the federal government.”

In spite of the appointment of new chairman of board, the Brazilian government appoints nearly seven out of ten board members of the company. The government of Brazil holds the maximum of the voting rights in the oil and gas company. On Petrobras, the government will be represented by Luciano Coutinho, Segen Astefen, Gueded de Carvalho, Luiz Navrro, Mr. Bendine and Roberto Costello Branco.

The minority of stockholders are liable for two other members’ appointment, while one board member is appointed by the company employees. The members selected by the minority shareholders are Walter Mendes and Guiherme Ferreira. However, Fayyid Bacelar will be representing the company employees.

While majority have greeted Mr. Ferreira appointment as Board chairman, some have also shown disappointment regarding the decision. They think that the appointment will drive to some conflict of interests, as currently he is Chief Executive Officer of the Vale.

On Monday April 27, Moody’s Investor Service declared that it has decided to review Petrobras credit rating. They stripped company’s investment grade followed by its involvement in biggest corruption scandal that causes billion of dollar loss to the company. Federal prosecutor has accused that company’s officials along with a lobby of Construction Companies worked to shaft money out of company’s account by manipulating public contract prices.

Petroleo Brasileiro Petrobras SA (ADR) stock was up 1.17% to $9.50 at market close on Thursday April 30 but decreased 0.21% to 49.48 during after hour trading as on 7:57 PM EDT.

Goldman Sachs Trails In The Trading Debut

Stocks of Goldman Sachs BDC were 2.2% down during market hours.

Goldman Sachs BDC Inc. (NYSE:GSBD), the first incorporated company by an investment bank in the U.S., saw its stocks plunge in the trading debut, after selling stocks to the general public at a lower rate in its initial public offering (IPO) .

Stocks of the company, under the ticker GSBD, were trailing by 2.2% at $19.57 on the New York Stock Exchange last month, dragging down the market capitalization to roughly $690 million.

“We invest primarily in U.S. middle-market companies, which we believe have been underserved in recent years by traditional providers of capital such as banks and the public debt markets,” Goldman Sachs BDC said in a regulatory filing.

Goldman Sachs BDC is a business development company established by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE:GS), which has issued loans worth $1 billion since 2012 to middle-large U.S. companies. Goldman Sachs Group had 20% stakes in the company in 2014.

Business Development companies are known to provide 90% of the net earnings as dividend to the shareholders, as they receive tax exemptions from the government for investing in small to middle companies in the U.S.

Goldman Sachs BDC, which is management by the asset management division of Goldman Sachs Group, provides financial services to its customers, including apparel retailer Avenue Stores LLC, Extraction Oil & Gas Holding LLC, aircraft engineer Heligear Acquisitions Co. and marketing agency Infinity Sales Group.  

The commercial lending venture had assets and liabilities worth $967.5 million and $392.9 million, respectively, at 2014-yearend. It earned $73.3 million from investments in FY14, which boosted the net assets from operations by $36.9 million.

Goldman Sachs DBC raised around $120 million for 6 million shares at price of $20-21 per share on March 17. The shareholders of the newly formed company are promised to receive dividend per share of $0.45 on March 31.The business development company wants to use the proceeds from shares issue to settle its debts.

Credit Suisse Group AG is also considering form a business development company “Credit Suisse Park View BDC” this year, striving to raise about $500 million.

U.S. Business Development Companies Price Index – benchmark index for tracking the most liquid and largest BDC over the world – has climbed 1% in 2015, after plunging 15$ in 2014.

eBay Inc. first quarter fiscal year 2015 Earnings Preview by Cantor Fitzgerald

Cantor Fitzgerald expects eBay Inc. to report in-line first-quarter results, while reiterating a Buy rating on the stock.

On Monday in a research note, Cantor Fitzgerald restates its rating of Buy on the stock of eBay with a price target of $60. The sell side company supposes the company to post its first quarter financial results as per the Street’s estimation. The e-commerce giant is all set to report its 1QFY15 earnings on Wednesday APRIL 22^nd after market close.

Youssef Squali an analyst at Cantor Fitzgerald mentioned we expect 1Q:15 results to come in line with muted Street expectations given the maturing auction business.” He thinks that the exchange rate volatility will put substantial pressure on the quarter earnings, and the currency impact is likely to continue towards the next quarter as well.

Cantor Fitzgerald expects the company to post around $4.39 billion of revenue somewhat less than the $4.43 consensus estimate in the first quarter. The research firm believes company’s earnings per share to be in line with consensus estimate of 70 cents. The sell-side firm said, “We expect revenue growth to dip ~560 bps Q/Q to 3% Y/Y, largely reflecting F/X headwinds and continued underperformance of Marketplaces.”

Mr. Squali decreased his EPS estimate for fiscal year 2015 to $3.09 from $3.26 less than consensus forecast of $3.10, mainly due to currency headwinds. He believes that eBay will report $3.41 EPS in FY2016 more than consensus projection of $3.39.

Furthermore, Cantor is optimistic that the spinoff of its payments unit PayPal will unlock great value for the e commerce company. The firm supposes eBay to release robust 2^nd quarter guidance, and update the whole year future guidance including the spinoff of PayPal. EBay is all set to finish the spinoff later this year.

The management of EBay Inc. expects 1QFY15 revenue to be in the range of $4.35 to $4.45 billion down by 10.6% from previous quarter slightly less than $4.61 billion of Zacks estimate.

As per the analysts polled by Bloomberg, 23 assigned a rating of Buy with 21 hold ratings, however only four have rated the stock of eBay as Sell. The twelve month consensus price target on the company stock is $54.64 which reflects 6.9% of upward potential compared to current stock price.

EBay stock is up by 0.50% and trading at $56.07. The e-commerce has market capitalization of $67.65 billion.

Netflix Inc. first quarter FY15 earnings release

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Netflix Inc. reported its first quarter earnings on April 15, with net addition of 4.9 million new subscribers.

The January to March 2015 quarter was good for Netflix in terms of subscription. International, domestic and entire streaming accounts reached 40 million, 20 million and 60 million, respectively.

Netflix Inc. in the first quarter 2015, added almost 4.9 million more members to its streaming network compared to previous quarter, the company now have around 62.27 million members. However, the company was targeting 4.1 million new subscribers but it was able to cross the target.

It’s the consistent fourth quarter in which the streaming giant was able to add more international subscribers than domestic. The stateside still contains 70% of revenue.

Revenue of the company rose by 24% since the previous year quarter to reach $1.57 billion, which is according to the estimate by Wall Street’s top line forecast, but reported outcomes were held back due to falling foreign currency. Company’s net profit of $0.38 per share was much less than analysts’ estimate of $0.69 and its previous quarter net profit of $0.86 per share , but the reason for this miss was mainly because of exchange rate volatility. The company would have pocketed a $0.77 per share profit for foreign exchange volatility.

The better than expected addition of subscription did not come as a surprise, as last week Netflix tweeted “Netflix members watched 10 billion hours last quarter. That’s about 905,892,833 seasons of @HouseofCards”

Things for Netflix are moving into the right direction. The Online Streaming company is seeking to extend its streaming base by almost 2.5 million in the next quarter. That number does not look attractive after adding almost twice of this in the first quarter, the reason is past results shows that the 2^nd quarter is usually sleepy for the company. It added only 1.7 million users in the prior year second quarter.

After the announcement of first quarter result, Netflix stock went down in the first 45 minutes on Wednesday. The stock was 3.25% down to $475.46. However, during after hour trading it went up by almost $59.

Netflix stock closed at $475.46 after falling by 0.68 on Wednesday. The Los Gatos based company has 52 week low and high of $471.55 and $480.93, respectively.

Yahoo Inc. to bring changes to the way user log-in

As passwords remain vulnerable to the hackers, Yahoo has announced inventive ways to sign in--but it had got some mixed reviews.

Majority of the users find it really hard to remember different passwords for each of their account or feels nervous of using single password for all of their accounts. Tech specialists believe that conventional passwords are too outmoded and can be hacked easily.

Earlier this week, Microsoft and Yahoo had offered some alternatives to the problem; Yahoo came up with the plan that it can send a text to the users every time they try to open their accounts. On the other hand, Microsoft is coming up with the facial recognition and bit-metrics technology in upcoming operating system windows 10, which will allow the users to log on to the computer by using face or fingertip recognition. Although the two methods had diverse reviews

Yahoo Inc. is promising security and convenience to its users choosing to get password each time they want to login to the account. Once a user opted for this service, there will no need for them to remember their password for email and other services of Yahoo.

However some of the expert believes that this is not a god move by the company. A Cyber security firm Tripwire risk strategist, Tim Erlin said, "Yahoo just made it easier for attackers to compromise an account,” Temporary passwords can get to anyone if a phone got stolen. While majority of phones have password to unlock the screen but mostly people don’t do that. He also said that phone can get malware virus that captures or replicates text messages.

However Erlin said, it may be more convenient if the company offers a two factor authentication, by using that a user will be required to enter a conventional password as well as the password sent to their phones. This will have a stronger impact on making the security better as the hacker will need both the password to crack the account.

Security chief of Yahoo groups, Alex Stamos supported the 2 factor authentication is better. But some people do not use it. However, users choose to have a short password which is easy to type but it is also vulnerable to hackers.

Stamos said, almost every online accounts offer user to reset their passwords through e-mail or text messages, users are exposed in the case of losing their gadget.

Stamos tweeted, "The truth is that passwords are so incredibly, ridiculously broken that it is almost impossible to keep users safe as long as we have any,” He also said Yahoo has been finding solution to the problems.

Yahoo stock stood at $44.20 on Wednesday after a decline of 0.50%.

Buyout Offer Confirmed: American Apparel

Woes continue for American Apparel as take-over proposition is insight. The LA based clothing brand is tight lipped on the prospective buyer. However, last week Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg News had reported that a private equity firm, Irving Place Capital has made an offer of $1.30 to $1.40 per share.

Five days later when Dov Charney was let go from the company he established, the above mentioned buyout offer was made, this news coupled with the appointment of a new CEO, Paula Schneider a renowned retail executive who takes the reigns of the clothing brand by the beginning of January 2015, has resulted in a surge in share prices early last week by almost 8% to take the shares at $1.16 per share.

In the midst of the take-over bid American Apparel (NYSEMKT:APP) is reported to set in a “poison pill”, shareholders right plan to deter an inimical buyout. American Apparel tries a “flip in” strategy by offering rights issue to existing shareholders. This move is expected to dilute holdings and make the takeover more expensive. It is worth observing that Dov Charney the founder had recently upped his holdings to 43% in June. An increased holding by Charney suggests that the troubled founder and CEO looks to make a comeback in some capacity although the voting rights are shared by a New York based hedge fund, Standard General. The hedge fund is reported to have loaned funds to facilitate Charney to boost his shareholdings from a mere 27% to 43%.

Amongst other developments Collen Brown replaced co-chairs David Danziger and Allan Mayer, Collen Brown has been on the board since August. Danziger and Mayer still serve on the board.

Paula Schneider who has filled the vacancy of the CEO has previously worked in a number of retail companies like Warnaco Group and BCBG Max Azria.

American Apparel the company which has been under a lot of criticism and speculation after the scandalized removal of ex-CEO Dov Charney, has been under a lot of pressure by investors and shareholders. The company has also been facing a decline in shares and in the ruins that the company has been lately, the idea of a takeover by another company has come to Apparel at the right time. The fact that the company has managed to fire the sole founder of the company has attracted many negative remarks on the company’s activities and has overall created a bad image in the industry.