Alphabet’s Share Buyback Program Significance

Alphabet announced a stock buyback when the company is sitting near all-time highs. Is this ever value-accretive

Alphabet Inc has been carrying forward major tasks in the industry and has not even stopped for a day to carry out what it was always meant to do, being the parent company of major subsidiaries like Google and other related companies. The giant has only recently made the much talked about release of the first quarter to be reported under the new name of the company, which created much of a stir right at that time in the market. Following the earnings, the company also announced that it will be initiating a new program under which it will be starting an authorized selling plan worth up to $5 billion where the sells will be bought back by the company on different platforms.

The repurchase plan for the Alphabet shares will be done only for the stock of the Class C ratings, and this buy back of the shares will start from the next quarter, which will be the first quarter of the new financial year. Analysts who have been keeping a close eye on the activities of the stock giant are of the opinion that this step is one plan that the giant should have taken over a long time back. This clearly shows that the buying back of shares will be taken very positively by the analysts once it starts off properly.

Back in 2014, the tech giant was seen to experience some massive difficulties on the different indexes in the market which are considered when a stock value of a company is to be determined. The indexes which lowered their ratings on Alphabet, which was back then Google business, were none other than S&P 500 along with Nasdaq Composite which also downgraded the giant based on the lack of a repurchase power of the shares. Analysts believe that this downgrade was for the investors to know that the growth of the company might come to a standstill at some point in time, clearly giving out some bearish sentiments to them to think about.

The software giant has been reporting a sustainable growth on the index for some time where its cash flow has also turned out to be quite over to healthier side, which does have a positive effect on the shareholders and investors but with the repurchase of shares, analysts believe that tech giant is going to do wonders in the industry, as it has clearly made its investors quite satisfied. This new plan has been announced by the CFO of the company, namely Ruth Porat.

UBS Reduced Target Price On Twitter Stock

The stock price target was reduced from $48 to $40 at UBS, as it showed sluggish growth.

Twitter, Inc. has reported surprisingly healthy results for the third quarter fiscal year 2015. Once the micro-blogging company announced its result, in the after-market trading session, the stock fell by 13%. Additionally the company reported weaker-than-expected revenue, as it generated $569 million which represented a growth of 39% in comparison to the same quarter of Fiscal Year 2014.

The stock analysts at UBC, a financial services firm, have reiterated a rating of Buy on Twitter’s stock and have also provided a downward revision of the price target from $48 to $40. The financial and research services company has also stated that they are fairly careful with the stock of the mice-blogging company but certainly believe that it will show good growth and sustainability from the revenue that it will generate from the ads.

The adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of Twitter’s stock were at $0.10 which outperformed the estimated earnings of $0.05. Even though, the results shared by the company were fairly good, the shares of the social media network fell immediately after the earnings call. This dip was merely due to the dreary user growth. In the recent quarter, the social media website was able to add up to 3 million MAU – monthly active users, generating a total MAU of 307 million. These numbers do not include the SMS fast followers, which would increase the monthly user count.

The analysts at one the premier investment banks Cantor Fitzgerald also commented on the stock of the social media website suggesting a rating of Buy. The analysts also lowered the target price as well, to $45. Over 44 analysts cover the stock of the micro-blogging media company. Out of these 44 experts, a Buy rating was recommended by 17 of them and a Hold rating was suggested by 24 of them. They also suggested a 52-week consensus target price which was $34.22. From the Dow Jones Index, the stock fell by over 16% and currently is being traded at $30.25 which is a decrease of 3.39%.

In other news, Jack Dorsey was made the permanent chief executive officer of Twitter as the board of directors believed that he was the man to turn around the luck of the company. According to an analyst Mark May, the major product Project Lightning since Dorsey has been “a bit of a disappointment” and further added that the social media company’s ‘fire hose approach’ isn’t working quite well for them while Facebook’s “lean back approach” has worked quite well for the social media giant. He explained that it was be a good sight to see the social media website glom onto that model.

Apple Inc. Gets An Overweight Rating By Pacific Crest

Pacific Crest Securities where the company’s stock has been given an Overweight rating considering the sector weight.

Apple Inc. the tech giant has been upgraded by the Pacific Crest Securities where the company’s stock has been given an Overweight rating considering the sector weight. At this point, the 12 month target price is kept at $142. Considering the current price levels, the company’s target price signifies an upside potential. The tech behemoth has been successful in beating the estimates made by analysts in terms of Earnings per Share (EPS) and revenues during the fourth quarter as portrayed in the earnings report.

As per the report, the company was successful in selling 48 million units of the Apple iPhone in the fourth quarter which relates to the consensus estimates. The revenues for the company accumulated to $51.5 billion which is relatively ahead of the estimations made by Street which said $51.3 billion. Moreover, on a year over year basis there has been 23% growth. The analysts at Pacific Crest claim that the average selling price which was better than expectations for the iPhone has actually compensated for the staggering selling price of Mac.

According to the analytical firm, the brand equity of AAPL along with the substantial share of the company in the Smartphone industry is actually good enough to give it a strong position in the market in terms of pricing. This will actually assist the company in enjoying healthy margins while maintaining the constant “topline growth”.

As per Pacific Crest Securities, since early July, the price to earnings ratio for Apple (P/E) has actually flattened by almost 12% and almost 20% on a year to date (YTD) basis. This has actually given birth to concerns by the investors since the adoption rate for the company’s Apple Iphone 6s has been extremely sluggish. This has already been considered while drafting the stock price. The firm at this point expects that the March quarter might pose some vulnerability but the EPS and Revenues will further accelerate once the Iphone7 cycle starts.

Considering the company’s strong guidance for the first trimestral., the estimates have now been revised up by Pacific Crest for the sales of Iphone that is now 75.9 million units from 66.9 million for the quarter that ends in December. They have also given the EPS estimate for the complete year to be $10.30 for the fiscal year of 2017 that shows almost 9% growth with the iPhone 7 cycle.

Thus considering the prospects Apple stock have been upgraded to an Overweight rating.

Facebook Touches Share Price Of $100

The share price of the social media company went right up to $100, making the analysts in the industry very bullish about the upcoming earnings call that it is going to make for its fourth financial quarter of the year

In the most recent news about Facebook Inc, it was seen that the giant turned out to do surprisingly well enough on the stock index to reach a share price of $100 that was also considered as one of the most important developments that have been made by the giant in a time period of six to eight days only. On Friday, October 23, the media company’s stock went up and touched the share price targets that all the most bullish analysts had predicted it to get. Following the raise it has received on the index, the market cap of the giant has managed to come around $280 billion, which is another milestone that has been accomplished by the media owners.

According to a Facebook news article, it was also seen that the social media platform has been working hard towards making its presence in the search engine media industry a little better than before, so that it is good enough to be compared by Alphabet’s Google in the long run. Keeping a close eye on the increasing worth of the shares of the media company, it was also seen that presently the equity analysts in the company have emerged to be quite over to the bullish side when talking about the future of the giant. In a research note that was presented last week, analysts released a consensus price target rating for the media giant in which it is expected to report a market cap of $300 billion sooner than later.

Since the past couple of months, Facebook stock has managed to sustain a share value of $90 and this has been observed more accurately starting from July. The day the social networking company reported this share price, analysts on the Street started discussions and predictions about how it is probable that the media giant ends up touching the $100 share price latest by 2016. The recent upgrade shows that the stock has reacted positively way before the expected time, something that is being looked at by the equity firms in a very bullish manner.

On Friday, the value of the share went as high as $102, where it previously opened at $101.91. The predictions for this kind of a share price was made already back in July, right after the media company announced its earnings for the quarter. On the other hand, the giant will report earnings for the 4^th quarter in line on November 6, 2015. The analysts have already turned out to be positive about the upcoming earnings call, given how well the giant has been doing on the stock lately.

 

Tesla Earnings Preview For 3Q 2015

The auto making company is all set to release its earnings for the third quarter of November 3 and analysts seem to be bullish about the stock already

Tesla Motors has been scheduled to report earnings for the third fiscal quarter of the year and will be adding its sales figures in the earnings seasons on November 3. The auto making giant has been covered by a number of equity firms in the industry and has been rated according to the business activities it has been making in the recent times. Equity giant Baird has also rolled out a research and analysis on the earnings that the auto maker might possibly be reporting next week and the firm’s analysts are of the opinion that even though positivity can be expected for the near term, the company might not be attaining its full year aims with the kind of problems it has lately been facing.

The Baird analysts have, however, given a strong target for the Tesla share price which has been reported at $282. This shows the kind of bullishness that the stock of the hybrid car maker is being looked at presently, right before the giant actually releases its earnings. The same analysts have also mentioned in their research note that it is very probable that the total units of the new Model X might not be as much as the company first planned them to be, which could prove to be a disappointing factor for the investors.

According to the Street analysts, Tesla stock has received expectations to report revenue of around $1.26 billion for the quarter with a loss of around $65.3 million in the non-GAAP revenue. As for the margins that will be attained by the auto making company in the quarter, it is also estimated that they might be lower than the consensus predictions which have been made by all the equity firms and is to be reported at 22.9%.

If Bloomberg research data is to be considered, it will be seen that from the 22 equity companies which have run over a detailed research on the stock of the company, around 8 firms have presented the smart car manufacturers with a rating of ‘buy’ while the same number of analysts suggested a ‘hold’ status for the stock. The consensus price target, however, stands at $302.85.

Jack Dorsey Gives 1 Percent Of His Twitter Stocks To The Employees

Jack Dorsey tweets to give away 1 percent of his shares to the employees of Twitter Inc.

The CEO of micro blogging giant has announced on his website that he will be giving away one-third of his share to the workforce which is 1% of the company showing his generosity.

Jack Dorsey was recently announced as the CEO of the company once again and had made major changes for future success of the company, He tweeted on Thursday, “I’m giving around one-third of my Twitter stock to our employee equity pool to reinvest directly in our people.” The chief executive and co-founder of the company clearly mentioned his decision in the tweet that he wants his employees to have the share leading to the conclusion that he has no interest in keeping a bigger share and is more than okay with having a smaller one, he said that he is sure the company can get even bigger through combined efforts.

After giving 1% of shares he will be left with 2.23% shares in the social media network, even after giving 1% up he will still be the seventh on the list as the largest shareholder after Microsoft’s former CEO, Steve Ballmer has 4% of shares in the company. Recently the micro-blogging service cut its workforce by almost 8% globally, which did play a negative role between the relationships of the company and the employees. Jack Dorsey sent a personal e-mail to the entire workforce mentioning that he would help the fired employees get another job as well as other services in order to compensate but that evidently did not help so he made this huge announcement through the platform with a hope of improvement in the cold relationship between the two.

He has been the CEO for just 100 days since July when Dick Costolo resigned, second quarter earnings were not good of the company with concerns of user growth or monthly active users. This was also one of the reasons why Dick Costolo reigned. Since Dorsey has been re-assigned as he has been making changes to counter the problem and speed up the user growth, hence he is trying to keep employees happy and motivated to get better output since the company is going through a tough time. He released lighting project called as moments on the social media. Morgan Stanley downgraded twitter stock on Wednesday from Equal weight to underweight since he has no expectations that the firm will be able to reach Wall Street estimates in the coming quarter.

Twitter stock news shows that the stock currently stands at $31 currently.

 

BP Plc Beats Analysts’ Expectations

The major London based oil and gas company, BP Plc., has surpassed the analysts’ expectation in third quarter

BP Plc. (ADR) will announce its third quarter earnings for the fiscal year of 2015 before the opening bell today. The company’s third quarter ended on September 30 and as it is seen, it has performed average in the market. The London based Oil Company managed to generate high revenues of $54.73 billion after surpassing the analysts’ expectations which stated that the company was expected to generate $49.39 billion. Regardless of the fact that the company surpassed the estimations, the revenues were declined by 41.7% if matched with prior year quarter.
The oil company also beat the adjusted Earnings per Share (EPS) expectations as it posted $0.59 earnings per share. The analysts’ expectations were $0.38 per share in the quarter ending on September 30. However the earnings per share majorly declined if compared to the EPS of the similar quarter prior year which was $0.99. The major downfall in the Earnings per share part is duly because of the lower crude oil prices in the region. To most extent, the company’s business depends on the rising and falling of crude oil prices and here it just did not go right.
According to a source, “BP has indicated maintaining its organic capital expenditure in the range of $17-19 billion per annum through 2017. The company had earlier forecasted organic capital expenditures to be around $24-26 billion last year. BP has also undertaken cost-cutting techniques and managed to cut controllable cash costs by $3 billion in the first nine months of 2015, when compared to the same period last year.”
This has further plunged its exploration and production segment. The upstream pre-tax underlying profit was also negligible when compared to the previous year’s third quarter to $0.8 billion against $3.9 billion in 2014. However, the company performed magnificently in the downstream segment and continued its good performance. The profits that the oil company made were $382 million in this quarter and it made only $110 million in 2014.
The CEO of BP Plc., Bob Dudley, is satisfied with the results of the company for this quarter. Mr. Bob Dudley stated in the earnings release that it had to change strategies to some extent. He said, “Last year, we acted decisively to reset BP for a sustained period of lower oil prices and the results are coming through well. We are now in action to rebalance our financial framework in this new price environment.”

GoPro Stock Crashes

The stock of the camera making company has witnessed a massive fall, coming around to a share price of $28

GoPro stock has seen one of the biggest downfalls of its kind and the share value has fallen by around 8.73 percent, following a very bearish report presented by the analysts at Morgan Stanley on Thursday. The analysts have reported that the camera making company is expected to fall by even greater numbers as it there seems to be no proper signs of growth to be seen in near future. They also informed some confused investors that the Hero camera makers could be in danger at the stock market and the dip could continue for a long time, without any signs of further growth. In only a few hours during the trade that took place on Wednesday, the stock of the company fell, and that too to a share price of $28.08.

The downfall trend, as named by the same analysts, is believed to grow even more in the upcoming days in the stock market, which just makes it all the more difficult for the investors to keep a positive outlook towards the future of the company. The decline that has been faced by the giant is not the first one that it has so far faced in the past few days but it was recorded that starting from the early days of September trading, the dip came out to be as high as around 23%.

The last trading price that was seen by the disappointed investors in the last trade that GoPro stock witnessed was at $28, which turned out to be very close to the price target of $25, which was provided to the company by Barron in an article that he published.  The recent camera that was launched by the camera makers named Session is being considered as the negative force which has brought the stock down by such a bad effect. The new camera has failed to amuse the users, which is why it has only received weak sales so far.

On the other hand, Morgan Stanley analysts turned out to be a little too over the bearish side which showed in the massive cut that was made by them from a price target of $62 to a current target of $35 which has come around to show the massive change in the sentiments which the analysts had before towards the Hero camera makers. However, as for the rating provided to the company, the analysts were seen to present an equal-weight attitude towards the stock in the report.

Microsoft Earnings Report for 1QFY16

The software company has reported an EPS of 57 cents, whereas the revenue has turned out to be at $20.4 billion

Microsoft Corporation released its earnings report for the last quarter of 2015 on Thursday, right after the trading for the day ended. The software company was seen to report revenue of around $20.4 billion which indicated that the giant has gone through a huge dip of around 12 percent on a year over year basis. The operating income expenses have come out to be at $5.8 billion whereas the earnings per share of the three month financial period turned out to be 57 cents, which was only a cent less than what the Street analysts had expected out of the company.

The fact that Microsoft stock has turned out to miss out the estimations of the equity firms has put the investors off a little bit but on the other hand, the stronger ground that the software giant currently stands on is its cloud business which seems to be boosting the business with some renewed strengths. As for the Office 365 user base, it has grown by a huge figure of 3 million in the last three financial months which has made the total users to stand at around 18.2 million for the cloud computing software. The growth is also being seen to be by 70 percent, which is massive in the analysts’ eyes.

The sales of its cloud computing service, the Azure, also showed colossal signs of increment in which the numbers came around to be at 135 percent and is being considered by the analysts as a huge breakthrough for the company in the industry. In the earnings call, it was also reported that the software giant turned out to experience doubled figure for the users on the cloud services and the total revenue that was attained from the department also saw an increase by 13 percent.

The management of the Microsoft business has also emerged to be very positive about the way things seem to be going within the company. However, the sectors in the company which were the most down in the earnings were of the smart phones as well as the sales of Surface tablets, which was due to the increasing sale of Surface Pro laptops which were recently released in the market with a new version. http://www.ibtimes.com/microsoft-corporation-msft-q1-2016-57-cent-eps-misses-wall-street-expectations-2152910

Analysts Bullish On Ford Motor Stock

Most of the analysts remains bullish on stock of Ford Motor stock

Ford Motor has been covered by a number of analysts in the industry, who seems to be having quite a lot of different opinions on the stock of the auto making company. In recent news, it was seen that the giant reported some important transactions within the management to the Security Exchange Commission in which it was seen that one of the directors of the auto firm carried out a massive purchase valued up to $41,550 in the first week of September 2015. As for the standard deviation of the purchase of the shares, the figure has come around at a price of $8.73.
Analysts at Zacks have been giving Fords stock very close attention, keeping a track on all kinds of ups and downs that are observed by the company to know where it could be headed in the near future. According to the scale of 1 to 5 that is normally provided by the analysts of the equity firm to all the companies it chooses to cover to measure the kind of state it is in the industry, a particular rating has also been suggested for the hybrid car makers. Given how the earnings for the last reported financial quarter were more than the estimations set by the giant, analysts are of the opinion that this shows that the auto making giant is in a good position to go forward in the auto industry.
This rating by analysts at Zacks has been given to the giant supported by quite a lot of reasons, which include how Fords business has been carrying out proper launches of all of its cars and products timely and how it has put all of its attention towards growing in the Asian region along with the one it is already established in. Apart from that, the global deployment rate which has been noted down by the analysts has turned them over the top positive towards the future of the giant. As for One Ford turnaround, the plan has been deemed as a huge success by equity analysts and they believe that this has become one of the most important factors which have determined the current progress it has been facing the firm.
In the past trade session that was noted down by the stock index, Ford’s shares were seen to close at a price of $15.22. However, analysts firms like Vetr have also given out ratings to the giant with a price target that aims at a share price of $33.