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brian kelly said that intel corporation (nasdaq: intc ) gained 40 percent year to date, but he is not sure that the stock is going to continue forward with the same strength and pace. traders with a long position should hold intel corporation because it still has a strong dividend, thinks kelly. international business machines corp. (nyse: ibm ) lost 14 percent in 2014 and that was its second bad year in a row, said jim lebenthal. he thinks that international business machines corp. will have a great 2015 because it divested a lot of bad businesses and it made partnerships with apple inc. (nasdaq: aapl ) and intel corporation (nasdaq: intc ). lebenthal believes that there is a bright future for application of artificial intelligence in medical business, which should be good for the sales of international business machines corp. . american airlines group inc (nasdaq: aal ) spiked 112 percent in 2014 and david seaburg thinks that it is going to trade much higher in 2015. the company has been a massive beneficiary of lower crude oil price and it doesn't hedge crude oil. | 2015-01-01 |
meanwhile, apple inc 's (nasdaq: aapl ) itunes looked to be falling behind, but many see 2015 as a developmental year in which the company will get on board with the streaming trend. apple recently bought beats music for $3 billion, a deal which most expect to see exploited in the coming year. beats currently offers a $9.99 per month streaming service, which will likely become a part of itunes' offerings in the near future. | 2015-01-02 |
quartz recently polled 811 smartphone users living in the u.s. asking their intentions to buy apple's (nasdaq: aapl ) upcoming watch product. | 2015-01-02 |
jim kelleher of argus research wrote in a note on friday that apple (nasdaq: aapl ) is expected to report a “strong” first quarter results due to the success of the company's iphone 6 and iphone 6 plus. | 2015-01-02 |
over the years, apple inc. (nasdaq: aapl ) has tasted success with almost every product it has launched. can it replicate the same with apple watch in 2015? dawn chiemelewski from re/code, and max wolff from manhattan venture partners, were recently on cnbc to share their thoughts on that. “people have been waiting for apple to introduce a wearable for quite a long time. it unveiled the apple watch in september to quite a fan fare, lots of coverage, even in the fashion magazines, which is a pretty significant feat for a device, a wearable that has been kind of geeky. well, i think, we are going to see it perhaps by the spring time and i think, some analyst are now predicting that the watch may sell as many as 30 million units in its first year,” chiemelewski said. wolff contradicted that by saying, “in terms of the watch we think it’s a big product, but we don’t think that they are going to sell a lot and we don’t think it’s a big revenue story. we think, it’s a proof that they can roll out a new platform and try to again cross purpose the app network, again cross purpose the app store and again cross purpose ios here and do something that drives loyalty to the core business which is the iphone 6 and iphone 6 plus, which we think they will sell well in excess of 185-200 million units of, they’ll have a good year, it’s a good investment, but the watch is not going to drop anything other than some gravitas, some bragging rights […]” | 2015-01-03 |
a new year and a new slate of apple inc. (nasdaq: aapl ) headlines. | 2015-01-03 |
rated one of the best online brokers of 2014, td ameritrade services a lot of clients. tda recently shared some interesting data about the top held and top traded names by its clients over the past year. chief strategist jj kinahan was nice enough to go over the data with benzinga to talk about what the statistics mean. top 10 names held by td ameritrade retail clients: apple inc. (nasdaq: aapl ) general electric company (nyse: ge ) bank of america corp (nyse: bac ) microsoft corporation (nasdaq: msft ) facebook inc (nasdaq: fb ) intel corporation (nasdaq: intc ) at&t inc. (nyse: t ) exxon mobil corporation (nyse: xom ) spdr s&p 500 etf trust (nyse: spy ) berkshire hathaway inc. (nyse: brk-b ) top names traded by td ameritrade retail clients: apple inc. (nasdaq: aapl ) spdr s&p 500 etf trust (nyse: spy ) facebook inc (nasdaq: fb ) twitter inc (nyse: twtr ) tesla motors inc (nasdaq: tsla ) netflix, inc. (nasdaq: nflx ) amazon.com, inc. (nasdaq: amzn ) bank of america corp (nyse: bac ) ishares russell 2000 index (nyse: iwm ) gilead sciences,. inc. (nasdaq: gild ) what the numbers reveal about traders first, investors like to both hold and trade apple. it takes the top spot in both lists. but what kinahan said was more interesting is that facebook is also one of the top held names. he said it shows a mindset difference in clients over the last few years. “if you look at this list five years ago, i don’t think it would be a surprise to anybody that ge, bank of america, microsoft will be in there,” he said. “but i think to see facebook on there is really something amazing.” related link: exclusive: equitynet ceo on why the fed won't raise rates in 2015 kinahan also found it interesting that bank of america was still so high on the list. he suspects investors are holding that name to hunt for yield, “especially with the rates most of the year under 2.4 percent.” in terms of the top-traded stocks, kinahan thinks that investors are drawn toward the sexy names. so it’s no surprise that twitter, tesla and netflix on there. although, kinahan admitted he was slightly intrigued to see such a high-priced stock like netflix on the list. he thinks this breaks the stereotype that most traders are “all in and out” and only have $20,000 in their accounts. “well, clearly this data is showing you this is not the case, because of the trading of these highly priced stocks,” he said. what the numbers show about tech the biggest difference between the top held and traded stocks for td ameritrade clients lies in the technology sector. kinahan called it the difference between “old line versus new line” tech. what he means is that older, more established companies like microsoft and at&t, though they do have diversified product mixes, are still somewhat older technologies. that’s in comparison to other tech companies that top the most-traded list like netflix, facebook and twitter. the social media names on the list stuck out to kinahan, as well. do we start 2015 by setting new $spx records? todays blog http://t.co/dzicwiid20 — tdajjkinahan (@tdajjkinahan) january 2, 2015 “too many times, people are afraid to invest in tech because it is too confusing,” he said, adding that many investors are cautious because they don’t understand what the company does. “people understand social media.” kinahan went on to explain that the simplicity of social media makes it more accessible. he said people use and understand how sites like facebook and twitter work. gilead sciences managed to squeeze its way into the top-traded list, as well. kinahan said this surprised him, because he’s not sure people totally understand what the company does. “that is one that makes sense to me that people are just trading in and out of and not necessarily holding,” he said. “if you are going to hold something, you certainly want to understand a lot more about what the company does and how they make money in the longer curve.” looking into 2015 moving into the new year, kinahan expects tech stocks to remain hot. he also said retailers will be trading as earnings season approaches since investors expect the last quarter of the year to have been good with such low gas prices. he’s also interested to see if stocks like alibaba holding group ltd (nyse: baba ) will become more of the day-trader type as the stock gets more movement. | 2015-01-03 |
increasingly, tablet lifetimes are getting extended and software upgrades, especially for apple inc (nasdaq: aapl ) devices, keep the tablets current. | 2015-01-05 |
td ameritrade customers bought shares of apple (nasdaq: aapl ) which was the most widely held stock by the firm's clients. investors also bought shares of gopro (nasdaq: gpro ), twitter (nyse: twtr ), kinder morgan (nyse: kmi ), southwest airlines (nyse: luv ) and transocean. (nyse: rig ) | 2015-01-05 |
former tumblr cto, marco arment recently wrote a blog post titled ‘apple has lost the functional high ground’ in which he praised apple inc. (nasdaq: aapl ) for making great hardware, but also criticized the company for faltering in the software department. the post reads, “apple's hardware today is amazing - it has never been better. but the software quality has taken such a nosedive in the last few years that i'm deeply concerned for its future.” jon steinberg, ceo of the daily mail north america, and slava rubin, co-founder of indiegogo, were recently on cnbc to discuss whether what arment wrote is indeed true. “well, marco is one of the most powerful apple software developers out there, both for ios and for desktop as well, he was one of the original tumblr employees, he does instapaper now as well and yes i had experienced this kind of clogging up and over featuring of the os, thought it was just me, read marco’s post last night and saw people on twitter […]commenting that they were experiencing this stuff as well. so, i think it’s a thing, i think it’s a real challenge that apple is facing right now,” steinberg said. rubin added to that saying, “i think that apple has lots of things going on right now, there’s the iphone, the ipad the apple watch, the iwatch that is coming out, apple pay, home-kit, health-kit, all of a sudden they are coming out with beats. when you go back to the early days when jobs came back and he said - we are going to cut down all these things, what we are going to focus on is a few products. i think, apple needs to think about are they really just separating with too many things, they need to maybe focus and make sure that it’s not just about marketing, they need to be innovating on their software as well.” | 2015-01-05 |
investors are quick to react to any and all news relating to apple inc. (nasdaq: aapl ), but there are times when they might want to ignore the headlines. | 2015-01-05 |
the biggest consumer electronics event in the world, ces, is taking place at las vegas nevada. however, by sending only 4 representatives at the event, it seems the biggest consumer electronic firm in the world, apple inc. (nasdaq: aapl ) , is not to keen to make its presence felt there. nyu stern school of business marketing professor scott galloway was on bloomberg tuesday to discuss if the ces has any significance and opine on why apple is giving the event a cold shoulder. the ces is trying to become the consumer world’s davos and everyone goes to meet there, but so far, for me the big takeaway every year from ces, the tvs are going to get bigger and cheaper which granted is important, but it seems to me it’s become less and less relevant. if you take out the fact that it’s now incredible agora, incredible meeting place, try and think of what is the one thing that seems different or insightful that’s come out of ces so far, i have trouble in thinking what it is” galoway said. do we need interactive tvs? so interactive tv was supposed to be a big hit and the core advantage the core competence of the tv is it doesn’t ask you to interact with it, it’s a passive activity and that’s what we love about it. they do need an operating system now, they have gotten pretty complicated, so you need to see basic search. so, what do we have, we have the androis, sony announcing they are going to be on the android platform, samsung has developed their own platform, which usually doesn’t end well and also firefox is getting in the game,” galloway replied. apple missing from the picture galloway wondered why tim cook is missing from the ces, saying, “we have all waited with a bated breath for an apple tv.” on why apple doesn’t take ces seriously as other companies and sent only four of its representatives at the event, galloway said, “yeah, well apple is not on social media either. apple takes the conventional wisdom and just pivots it the other way and seems to be working so far, so that’s not surprising.” | 2015-01-06 |
apple inc (nasdaq: aapl ) was granted 28 new patents tuesday including what could be a bendable iphone and lifestream, a competitor to google glass. “apple states that future flexible electronic devices may include flexible housing members and flexible internal components. rigid and flexible internal components may be mounted in the flexible housing. “flexible internal components may include flexible batteries such as batteries having rigid and flexible portions, batteries formed from multiple rigid portions joined in a flexible joint, and batteries formed from flexible battery layers,” according to patently apple . apple’s lifestream glasses “collect unscripted data, add more meaning and use out of the data, and bind the data to services." rather than jotting notes on a piece of paper, lifestream can collect and organize the data for the user. “what type of data? the patent gives a few examples of what it could collect from a conversation, besides raw audio and video: facial recognition; ‘respiration patterns, ... pupil dilation, blinking, tears, redness,’” as reported by cnn money . apple inc recently traded at $105.81, down 0.41 percent. | 2015-01-06 |
nomura analyst anthony diclemente commented on google inc (nasdaq: goog ) (nasdaq: googl ) and apple inc (nasdaq: aapl ) wednesday. diclemente noted that “google has always been the default search engine in apple’s mobile safari browser on the iphone and ipad, but according to an article recently published by the information, that agreement may be up for renewal in early 2015.” it is assumed that “yahoo/microsoft is pitching apple for this business.” the firm “attempted to quantify the implications to google if the google/apple relationship were to be severed, however likely or unlikely this may be.” "while a separation could create headline risk and disruption for google users on ios platforms, we believe it would result in a relatively contained financial risk of roughly $2 to 2015e eps of $29.17,” according to the analyst note. applying a 22x target 2015e p/e multiple would result in a ~$47 (~7 percent) decrease in the firm’s $640 target price. diclemente estimated cy14e eps at $25.77 and cy15e eps at $29.17. google inc recently traded at $501.49, down 0.09 percent. apple inc recently traded at $107.60, up 1.26 percent. | 2015-01-07 |
apple inc. (nasdaq: aapl ) nascent effort to sell its products corporate and goverment markets could get a push from a recent hire, according to a report thursday. | 2015-01-08 |
while everyone is busy debating holiday season sales figures from apple inc. (nasdaq: aapl ) , apple today came out with the sales number for its app store for 2014. cnbc ’s josh lipton reported on the numbers from apple and also elaborated how google inc (nasdaq: googl ) 's google play is no comparison to app store when it comes to revenues. “it was a record breaking year for apple’s app store,” lipton said. “apple just now reporting that in 2014 billings rose 50% and apps generated over $10 billion in revenues for developers. that means now, to date app store developers have now earned $25 billion from the sales of apps and games. apple says that the strong momentum is also continuing here in the new year, the first week of january set a new record with customers spending nearly half a billion dollars on apps and in-app purchases and new years day marked the single biggest day ever in app store sales history.” app store vs. google play: the numbers “remember, apple launched the app store in 2008,” lipton said. now, there’s really an entire industry dedicated to just designing and developing apps. apple says that in the last six years the ios ecosystem has helped create some 627,000 jobs in the us alone. the app store is a big battle ground between apple and google.” he continued, “according to app annie, google play downloads were about 60% higher than ios app store downloads in the third quarter, but ios retained its strong lead in app store revenue. in the third quarter ios app store revenue was about 60p higher than goggle’s play. app annie says that at least part of that difference can be explained by apple’s premium product consumers, if they can afford an iphone, says app annie, they can probably afford to spend more on apps.” | 2015-01-08 |
even after having a super holiday season sales, shares of apple inc. (nasdaq: aapl ) are witnessing significant declines. however, brian white, analyst at cantor fitzgerald thinks that the going will be great for apple in 2015, especially after the apple watch releases. white was on cnbc to discuss the outlook for apple this year and the sales of the apple watch. “well i think it’s still very early in this product cycle, white said. “ so, we have called this a super cycle, we started off with iphone 6 and iphone 6 plus that got them into the phablet market and we haven’t released the apple watch yet and so, every four to five years you get a new product category and that’s very exciting, that’s good for the shares, that’s good for the income statement and i think we are just getting started with that. so, anytime we get a pullback like this, we want to be buyers of apple’s shares.” how big the watch could be for apple? “a lot of times at first there is shortages of apple products, i think it will be more important from a sentiment standpoint to get a new product out there, category, to get people excited about something new at apple and i expect the marketing campaign to be massive. so, we have said, we think, this can be the biggest product in apple in history in the first year. ipad sold 19.5 million units in the first year. we think apple watch could surpass that,” white replied. when asked if apple is willing to sell more than 20 million watches in 2015 even if there is demand for it, “i think they want to. i think, at first they may not have all the volume they want, but i do think as the year progresses there will be enough volume.” | 2015-01-08 |
apple inc. (nasdaq: aapl ) is back in the news with legal trouble, but this time it’s recently acquired beats electronics that is facing fines. the headphone making company is being sued by former partner monster llc, which claims that beats’ co-owners jimmy iovine and dr. dre conspired to eliminate monster’s stake in the company before being bought by apple. monster’s manager noel lee said he worked together with iovine and dre to develop the headphones, but that the two used a “sham transaction” with htc in order to sever its ties with monster ahead of the apple deal. monster claims that millions was lost in revenue and that lee’s 5 percent stake in the company would be worth $100 million today. past suits this is not the first time apple will have to deal with beats’ legal troubles. the premium headphone maker was also sued by bose last year over a patent violation just months before apple’s acquisition was set to take place. many wonder if apple’s decision to spend $3 billion on the company was a wise one as the it stands to provide few financial gains. while apple hasn’t revealed its plans for the beats acquisition, many speculate the beats streaming service was a large factor in the decision. with itunes slowly loosing popularity to streaming sites like spotify ag and pandora media inc. (nyse: p ), it’s only a matter of time before apple throws its hat into the subscription based services arena. | 2015-01-08 |
if more apps equals more phones, apple inc. (nasdaq: aapl ) could be headed for a record-breaking quarter. | 2015-01-09 |
finally, new competition and cooperation opportunities from other technology companies are emerging that are neither apple (nasdaq: aapl ) nor google. (nasdaq: goog ) (nasdaq: googl ) in fact, the analyst sees nvidia (nasdaq: nvda ) increasing its exposure to the space with its neural network support for adas applications on the new tegrax1 chip. | 2015-01-09 |
apple (nasdaq: aapl ) recently stated that throughout 2014 its apps generated $10 billion in revenue for developers and $25 billion in cumulative revenue. the company stated that its app store billings rose 50 percent from 2013's level. | 2015-01-09 |
below are the analyst's predictions: ebay's (nasdaq: ebay ) paypal will launch an alternative banking product which may include a checking account. to do so, the company may acquire privately owned movenbank. the republican controlled congress may lead a movement for the consumer financial protection bureau to lose some of its powers. apple (nasdaq: aapl ) will launch its applepay service in europe. square will be put up for sale. visa's (nyse: v ) checkout service gains traction as more than 180 financial institutions begin marketing the service to its customers. wal-mart (nyse: wmt ) will offer american express (nyse: axp ) bluebird accounts to consumers in –store. apple will market its apple pay service within a major prime time television show during 2015. africa will become even more of a battleground for card networks. singles day in china will generate double digit (in billions) in sales after totaling $9.3 billion in ecommerce transactions in 2014. transaction database technology will begin to “share the spotlight” with digital currencies like bitcoin it enables. mccrohan's top picks in the sector include buy-rated: large cap: visa with a $295 price target. mid cap: vantiv (nyse: vntv ) with a $39 price target. small cap: net 1 ueps technologies (nasdaq: ueps ) with an $18 price target. | 2015-01-09 |
investor carl icahn appeared on cnbc thursday and discussed a number of topics, beginning with oil. icahn said that he felt oil prices would go even lower and while he was not “happy about that,” due to his holdings in transocean ltd (nyse: rig ), it would provide “great opportunities in the future” as icahn assumed consumption around the would would increase in coming years and that “oil will come back.” the investor predicted that there would be great opportunities in the service areas when oil rebounds but in the short-term “there’s too much production and too much inventory.” as for shale plays, he thought some of them “will be great, others may not” as some companies and investors had not understood worldwide competition in the oil markets. when discussing his holdings as an activist investor, icahn noted that apple inc (nasdaq: aapl ) is his largest position. he commented that “apple is my favorite stock,” he felt it is still undervalued, a “no-brainer” to own and that it is “extremely difficult to compete” with apple. icahn also indicated in the interview that he is not interested in twitter inc (nyse: twtr ). twitter inc was down in the after hours session to $38.98, falling 0.28 percent. apple inc traded at $112.25 in the after-market, up 0.32 percent. transocean ltd also traded higher after hours at $16.35, up 0.49 percent. | 2015-01-09 |
apple inc. (nasdaq: aapl ), samsung elect ltd(f) (otcmkts: ssnlf), lenovo group limited (adr) (otcmkts: lnvgy), huawei and xiaomi dominate the smartphone market, but that hasn't deterred others from entering the space. | 2015-01-09 |
he decided that the best strategy would be to buy apple inc. (nasdaq: aapl ), eog resources inc (nyse: eog ), mckesson corporation (nyse: mck ) and ipath s&p 500 vix short term futures tm etn (nyse: vxx ). terranova is also holding 20 percent of cash. | 2015-01-09 |
the graphs below were produced by capital market labs . apple inc. (nasdaq: aapl ) has engaged in an enormous stock buyback program, which has now been approved for up to $90 billion per a company press release on april 23, 2014. a snippet of that press release is included below: the scale of the buybacks is unheard of. but then again, the size of apple is also unheard of, nearing $700 billion in market cap. if one takes the $90 billion in stock repurchases and re-arranges it, apple could have purchased tesla , netflix and twitter starting in 2013 -- and still have bought back more stock than any other company in north america over the last two years . let’s first look at a chart that plots revenue on the x-axis and stock repurchases on the y-axis for the trailing twelve months. apple spent $45 billion on stock repurchases in the trailing twelve months, more than twice as large as the second largest buybacks (ibm) and more than three times as large as the third largest buybacks (xom). next, let’s look at a time series of apple's stock buybacks over the last eight years. from 2007 through 2013, apple spent $0 -- zero -- on buybacks. then in 2013, the firm spent about $23 billion. in 2014, it spent another ~$45 billion on stock repurchases. for the company to complete its $90 billion target, it will have to spend another $20 billion or so in 2015. needless to say, as the firm grew from an it giant to the largest company in the world, it started running out of places to put its cash flow. apple now pays a hefty dividend yielding nearly 2.0 percent per annum, but that still leaves enough cash on hand to buy all of citigroup in cash, for example. so, the firm turned on the switch for the buyback program. but there’s a third place apple could have spent the money: r&d. here are the largest spenders on r&d in the trailing twelve months (y-axis) with market cap on the x-axis. while apple has the largest market cap, it spent less than microsoft, google, amazon, intel and four other companies last year in research & development. in a prior article , i questioned if apple is risking underinvesting in its future. one thing is for sure: it isn’t under spending on its stock repurchases. as stated previously, the $90 billion in repurchases re-arranged could have resulted in apple acquiring tesla, netflix and twitter starting in 2013. and...it still could have bought back more stock than any other company over the last two years. now, a few things are absurd about that statement. 1. it’s just an absurd statement. that’s a huge amount of money. 2. a purchase of any of those three firms would not have been at market value, but at some substantial premium. 3. finally, a purchase of all three firms is total non-sense. it would have resulted in the largest restructuring/pivot the capital markets have ever seen. still, this is an interesting way to measure the scale of the buybacks. one does wonder though: is there really nothing better to do with cash than to outspend every other company in north america for stock buybacks, especially it is under-spending microsoft, google and amazon in r&d? worth noting: apple has fewer products than the other firms, so it’s not totally off-the-wall crazy that the firm has lower r&d expenses. in 2015, apple is expected to produce and sell the apple watch and complete two upgrades to the iphone 6, along with a new line of macbooks. there will also likely be upgrades to the macbook air, macbook pro and imac lines. but here’s the thing: all of those products combined aren't even close to the impact of the iphone, given that the apple watch is an unknown. so, should apple buy back even more stock? only time will tell. ophir gottlieb can be found on twitter @ophirgottlieb. | 2015-01-09 |
apple inc (nasdaq: aapl ) has opened its first store in central china, bringing the mainland total to 13. “the new store, which opened saturday in a shopping mall in downtown zhengzhou, the provincial capital, marked an important step on the layout of apple's retail chains in china, as the city is also home to foxconn, an apple production facility and apple's main supplier,” according to want china times . the report added that “apple ceo tim cook said during a trip to china in october that ‘it's just a matter of time’ before china ‘becomes apple's biggest revenue contributor’. cook also said apple would increase its number of apple stores in china, ranging from 15 to 40 in the next few years.” china remains a 'relatively' untapped growth area for apple and thus the opening of a store in central china will be a good litmus test for its real demand there. into earnings on january 27th watch key near-term support around the $105 area. apple inc closed at $109.25 monday, down 2.46 percent. | 2015-01-12 |
credit suisse downgraded teradyne, inc. (nyse: ter ) from outperform to neutral with a $19.50 price target as analyst farhan ahmad assumed coverage of the stock monday. ahmad expected that teradyne’s revenues will decline more than “10 percent in 2015 due to the soc test market decline.” “we are lowering our rev/eps estimates for cy15 from $1.60bn/$1.03 to $1.44bn/$0.84 and introducing cy16 at $1.59bn/$1.07, respectively,” according to the analyst note. the firm’s cy15/cy16 eps estimates are now 32 percent/29 percent below the street. ahmad felt that street estimates were too high and observed that “since 2004, ter revenues have declined in every odd-numbered year by 19 percent on average (-11 percent at the very least) and have followed a pattern of subcon capex which also declines in odd-numbered years." ahmad believed "cy15 semi test y/y revenue decline will be >15 percent, as 2014 revenues were stronger than usual because of” apple inc ’s (nasdaq: aapl ) move to taiwan semiconductor mfg. co. ltd. (adr) (nyse: tsm ). the firm’s $19.50 price target represented 13x its cy16 eps of ~$1.07, plus net cash. teradyne, inc. recently traded at $18.68, down 3.81 percent. | 2015-01-12 |
this piece contains the opinions of the author that do not reflect the opinions of benzinga.com. here are 10 trends to watch out for in 2015: 1. technology has made finding oil and gas much more accurate and cost effective everywhere. large or luxury auto sales will continue regardless of mpg ratings. energy independence is a real option in the usa and the americas. 2. people are tired of commuting and will work from home given the option. thus, less oil and gas is needed due to telecommuting. lifestyle is becoming more important to working families. being able to work from home and raise a family could become a civil rights issue. 3. citizens will take necessary steps to avoid modernized taxes or inner-city taxation. people will buy and build right outside of states such as: new york, california, or outside of cities such as chicago, boston, la or san fran. places like: texas, tennessee, florida and other federal tax free jurisdiction will gain momentum while acquiring the bulk of the baby boomer retirees who want to stretch their incomes. 4. people will live where there are high quality schools or parents may: a) home school their kids, send their children to private schools, use tutors, or use online study. 5. cheaper oil may reduce gdp of countries and super-states such as: nigeria, kuwait, saudi arabia, russia, and other active regions such as texas/alaska. cheap gas has spurred some consumer spending but cheaper gas may reduce tax revenue for governments, states and cities. 6. the demographics of fast growing regions such as india, china and indonesia/malaysia should continue to drive up energy and commodity costs for the next 40 years. more college grads in the usa may leave and work offshore than ever before. 7. colleges and universities may crumble in size or fail unless value is provided. there is an ever expanding number of free options: college courses, moocs massive courses, open courses, free online diplomas, free or almost free degree options and more. 2015 may be the easiest year in 40 years to get into a graduate school for law or business. 8. the dollar and stock market are temporarily strong and more people will travel internationally as a result of this. low interest rates & cheap energy are contributing to short term economic power, building, buying, and hiring. 9. conventional security and conventional policing is changing toward technology quickly. look for more cameras, more drones, more robots, more tracking, more surveillance, and more uses of stun or paralyzing technology. 10. branchless banking may shift to cyber cashless exchanges that are linked: amazon (a- coin), alibaba (b-coin) ebay (e-coin), google (g-coin) and paypal (p-coin), and other related companies and big players like visa, amex, discover, and schwab will do deals with companies like amazon and apple to provide branchless banking worldwide. investments to watch online education: devry education group inc (nyse: dv ) and apollo education group inc(nasdaq: apol ) robotics: boston scientific corporation (nyse: bsx ) surveillance: microsoft corporation (nasdaq: msft ), google inc (nasdaq: goog ) finance: charles schwab corp (nyse: schw ) agriculture: powershares db agriculture fund (nysearca:dba) consumer: ebay inc (nasdaq: ebay ), apple inc. (nasdaq: aapl ) advertising and media: yahoo! inc. (nasdaq: yhoo ), google defense: taser international, inc. (nasdaq: tasr ) dr. jur. george mentz is a world recognized self-help and wealth management commentator who has several professional development education companies which have trained thousands of professionals in over 40 countries. prof. mentz, an international attorney, founder of the global academy of finance and management ® www.gafm.com , has been a keynote speaker globally in the usa, china, asia, arabia, usa, mexico, switzerland, and in the west indies. mentz has consulted with governments, world leaders and fortune 500 companies. mentz has published bestsellers in the following categories: money and monetary policy, management science, mysticism, religion, psychology, and in spirituality. dr. mentz can be contacted for speaking engagements at www.gmentz.com or http://www.linkedin.com/in/georgementz | 2015-01-12 |
apple inc. (nasdaq: aapl ) boasted the success of its ios ecosystem recently be declaring the numbers behind its app store. with the iwatch to debut shortly, developers have already started working on apps suited for the watch. christopher mims, wall street journal technology columnist, was on cnbc tuesday to discuss a new app development industry that is taking shape centred around the iwatch. “well one thing that i got to look at that was particularly compelling was a company called inmarket, is working on apps for the watch that are based on things that they have already done for the iphone and they have in the lab an app that allows you to navigate through a grocery store and avoid the problem that we have all had of not being able to find things on a particular aisle,” mims said. will the iwatch be big enough at launch to sustain its own app ecosystem? “nobody knows how much it’s going to sell at the debut,” mims replied. “i think it will be huge because of the apple brand halo; morgan stanley is projecting that they could sell up to 30 million units in the first year, for reference the ipad only sold 14 million units in its first year. so, that would be big for apple. it would move the stock significantly.” he continued, “i also think that a lot of companies are also invested in having their apps ready at launch because they if they are early, just as they saw with the iphone…they could sell tons and tons of their apps and become institutions. so, wearables haven’t been that great to date, but i think in this case apple has enough developers who are going to be ready at launch that there could be significant amount of interest generated right then.” | 2015-01-12 |
apple inc. (nasdaq: aapl ) is just a couple weeks away from reporting its fiscal q1 2015 results. investors are salivating for the final numbers, which could set the stage for the coming months. | 2015-01-10 |
jpmorgan's rod hall on monday commented that apple (nasdaq: aapl ) has now caught up with domestic iphone 6 demand as consumers will no longer be forced to wait when purchasing an iphone 6 or iphone 6 plus. | 2015-01-12 |
does apple inc. (nasdaq: aapl ) have what it takes to change the smartwatch industry? | 2015-01-12 |
apple inc. (nasdaq: aapl ) reportedly formed a special team to pick up all of the enterprise customers sony corp (adr) (nyse: sne ) left behind when it exited the pc industry. | 2015-01-12 |
apple inc. (nasdaq: aapl ) was very close to releasing an iphone with an entirely new display in 2014. when gt advanced technologies inc (nasdaq: gtat ) failed to deliver on its promise and filed for bankruptcy , apple was forced to look elsewhere. | 2015-01-12 |
social media is becoming crucial to the financial toolbox, and a good trader should know how to use all of the tools at his disposal to help guide his investments in the right direction. market prophit compiles and analyzes the social media commentary that's related to investing, and develops statistics that tell users both the crowd and the expert (or marketprophit) sentiment. benzinga spoke with igor gonta, the company’s ceo, who, once again, updated us on the recently trending stocks. related topic: here's the etfs blowing up on social media stocks blowing up pretty much like wall street research firms, both the general crowd and the marketprophits (social media's most skilled traders) are bullish on apple inc. (nasdaq: aapl ) , which is up almost 5 percent in the last five days of trading. also confident on the tech behemoth is research firm credit suisse, which upgraded shares of apple on tuesday, from neutral to outperform, and raised its price target to $130, from a previous $110, on the back of a “solid and sustainable” iphone volume base. gonta also gave us away one extra tip in relation to apple: who’s the guy to follow. according to market prophit’s statistics, @moneymaker1905 was the top "market prophit" in apple last week. related topic: here's what twitter is watching: oil, the ecb & volatility facebook, inc. (nasdaq: fb ) is also quite popular. in this case, however, the crowd and experts seem to disagree. “our crowd signal is bullish while our market prophit signal is bearish on fb and the spread is pretty large,” gonta explained. finally, j p morgan chase & co (nyse: jpm ) was also trending, and the sentiment was very similar to facebook’s case: “our crowd signal is bullish while our market prophit signal is bearish on jpm going into earnings tomorrow.” bonus feature as a bonus feature, gonta gave away one more little secret: @paulwoll . this investor/trader is the guy to follow, for he was one of the overall top market prophits in 2014. | 2015-01-13 |
this piece contains the opinions of the author, kristin bentz, president at talented blonde, llc, that do not reflect the opinions of benzinga.com. don’t say i didn’t warn you. on december 23, 2014, i posted a missive on my tumblr page lamenting the recent weakness in traditional luxury names, followed by some pretty compelling #chartporn. actually, i spent an hour barking about it on the benzinga webinar back in october 11, 2014 titled: “turn down for what? a global economic turmoil in the luxury space.” that said, for some reason investors and analysts seemed caught off guard by tiffany & co.'s (nyse: tif ) announcement of lackluster sales in october and november and dismal holiday sales. the company cited strength in the u.s. dollar as affecting its international business, as well as weakness in japan—which has been hit of late with a sharp sales tax increase. tiffany & co. also took down guidance for 2015. tech usurps traditional luxury before we throw the baby out with the blue box™, let's look at what’s really happening here. tiffany is just the latest victim in a broader structural shift in consumer buying behavior in the luxury sector. prada (19:13hk), kering (ker:im) (parent of gucci and others,) ferragamo (ferg:im), moncler (monc:im), lvmh (mc:fp), all have suffered similar hits to their sales and stock performance. there is a slow moving train here that is symptomatic of a global economic slowdown in luxury. related link: did michael kors sell out? not only am i seeing a profound shift in the way consumers are purchasing luxury goods, but also in what they are buying. my contention is that technology has finally reached an inflection point as another form of luxury. i’ve long viewed apple (nasdaq: aapl ) as a luxury stock and have mentioned for years that technology has emerged as the new fashion statement. with the plucking of talent like angie ahrendts from burberry (lon: brby), one of the first luxury brands to aggressively use digital marketing strategies to reach its consumers, its easy to argue that the company agrees with that logic. add in the launch of new products from the likes of gopro (nyse: gpro ) and the rise of the “selfie stick,” and it’s not hard to believe that there were more bytes under the tree this holiday than blue boxes™. although, full disclosure: i did receive one under my tree. indeed it seems that experiential luxury is more and more what consumers are seeking. to clarify, i am not stating that luxury goods are dead, or that consumers aren’t purchasing them. i’m merely highlighting what i see as sectors that are seizing share of wallet that historically went to traditional luxury goods like jewelry, timepieces, apparel etc. and these stocks are reacting in kind. no longer can luxury goods purveyors sit back and believe consumers will simply seek them out. that share of wallet has to be earned. retailers that marry superior, differentiated merchandising with a flawless omnichannel experience will prevail as consumers shift their preferences of what they feel is true luxury. for instance newly re-imagined rh (nyse: rh ) or restoration hardware as it was formerly known, has completely reinvented itself. no longer the tweener pottery barn-esque boutiques with retro gadgets and leather club chairs, this retailer has emerged after going public in 2012 in one of the most prolific retail transformations i have ever witnessed. and, its timing could not have been better. | 2015-01-13 |
apple inc. (nasdaq: aapl ) has been upgraded to outperform from neutral by credit suisse analyst kulbinder garcha. in his note to investors, garcha argues that apple is going to sell lots of iphones and will increase the cash return program to $200 billion from the present $130 billion owing to the enormous amount of cash it is going to generate. roger mcnamee, musician and also a founding partner at elevation partners, was on cnbc tuesday discuss whether garcha is being too bullish on apple. “the numbers are mind boggling, but when you look at apple’s ability to generate cash, i wouldn’t put it past, i have have no idea what they are going to do with it,” mcnamee said. “ one thing i do know…whatever the emotions the underlying fundamentals at apple are really fantastic and they are in this position where the ecosystem around the ios operating system and the macintosh operating system are one large cohesive hole and with each new feature whether its apple pay or the watch or whatever, each thing makes the overall ecosystem more valuable and interestingly enough because it’s one big ecosystem they are sensitive to the success of individual products like the watch as they would have been in the past.” he continued, “so, to me it’s an amazingly cheap stock with nearly a 2% yield in a market where yields are really hard things to come by and so, again if you are going to own a stock here, i think apple in the tech space is the one to own, but like i say your market call is going to drive whether you are going to be in it or not.” | 2015-01-13 |
apple inc. (nasdaq: aapl ) recently filed a patent for new gesture control technology. in the future, this technology can enable apple products to read and comprehend hand signals from users. dan costa, editor-in-chief of pc magazine, was on cnbc tuesday to talk about the gesture control technology and its significance for apple. “well, it’s actually pretty important and it’s a very broad patent,” costa said. “i was actually impressed by how broad it is considering there has already been so much development in this space, but this is the result of apple buying primesense last november, they are the ones who developed the kinect system for microsoft and it basically looking at bringing the same technology to apple and it should really open up a whole new phase in technology evolution for apple.” he continued, “they are doing very well with touch based devices; they still have a very strong presence in keyboard based devices, but there is a whole new category of devices that don’t want to have the device in the room at the time or within contact with it and this will let users interact with those.” will apple’s next wave of products make use of the gesture control technology? “i am going to be an optimist, i think it will eventually find its way into the mix,” costa said. “so far it hasn’t had a huge response with kinect, that’s a little underwhelming, pretty good for gaming, but not a lot of other usage…but the thing about apple is that they don’t force interface where they don’t belong…i think it’s going to go really well with living room computing.” | 2015-01-13 |
apple inc. (nasdaq: aapl ) personal computer market share rose in the fourth quarter to 7.1 percent from 5.8 percent a year earlier. | 2015-01-13 |
buzz around apple inc’ s (nasdaq: aapl ) new smart watch has been growing in recent weeks as anyone and everyone in the tech space tries to get in on the action. while the watch won’t be available until march, developers are already working to have their apps prepared to launch when the device does. big names up their game big name companies have been working to tailor their services to a wearable device. facebook inc. (nasdaq: fb ) and twitter inc. (nasdaq: twtr ) have been working to create apps that will be usable on a smaller screen and will function seamlessly with the watch’s technology. however while well known apps have the upper-hand in the market because of their existing popularity, they may struggle to make their products valuable in this new arena. the wearables market means shorter attention spans, smaller screens and less user interaction. for companies who have already established themselves on smartphones and tablets, it could represent a new challenge of utilizing the watch’s features to enhance their own site. startup revolution the apple watch is expected to create a new boom of startups and app developers as it opens up an untapped market of wearable devices. the watch’s beacon support will likely feature in some of the new apps’ functionality as it will allow companies to target the location of a user within centimeters. for fitness apps like myfitnesspal or runkeeper , that type of functionality will increase the value of their offerings. in other cases, device integration is the biggest concern. yo , a simple app that sends “yo” messages, plans to simply use the watch as a notification center. evernote is hoping to make its complex organizational app a bit simpler for watch users, saying that ease of use will be extremely important for widespread adoption once the watch launches. advertisers already on board advertisers are chomping at the bit to get their campaigns in front of watch wearers. tapsense has already created a platform that will be able to place ads within individual applications in a format that will be usable on the watch. the watch’s location data is expected to become a huge asset to marketers, as it will enable them to reach their target market at a convenient location. so users who are using the watch to navigate a grocery store may see ads for a particular new product on sale in the isle they are browsing. | 2015-01-13 |
of note, apple (nasdaq: aapl ) maintained the fifth spot with a 7.1 percent worldwide market share as its worldwide shipments increased 18.9 percent year over year. | 2015-01-13 |
netlist inc. (nasdaq: nlst ) shares climbed 48.28% to $1.72. netlist granted injunction against diablo technologies. emulex corporation (nyse: elx ) jumped 20.34% to $6.98 after the company raised its q2 guidance. gulf resources, inc. (nasdaq: gure ) shares rose 19.12% to $1.37. gulf resources acquired shouguang city rongyuan chemical co. gulf resources expected fy2015 earnings of $0.74 per share on sales of $190.0 million. pharmacyclics inc. (nasdaq: pcyc ) shares gained 17.21% to $145.01 after the company announced strong preliminary revenue results. bebe stores, inc. (nasdaq: bebe ) shares jumped 12.50% to $2.79 after the company reported an 8% gain in its same-store sales for the second quarter. the company projected adjusted quarterly loss at the high end of its earlier forecast. tilly's, inc. (nyse: tlys ) shares gained 11.27% to $12.92 after the company lifted its earnings forecast for the fourth quarter. ihs inc. (nyse: ihs ) shares climbed 10.22% to $121.38 after the company reported a stronger-than-expected fourth-quarter profit. apple inc. (nasdaq: aapl ) shares gained 2.11% to $111.55. analysts at credit suisse upgraded apple from neutral to outperform and raised the price target from $110.00 to $130.00. amazon.com inc. (nasdaq: amzn ) shares jumped 2.02% to $297.29. citigroup upgraded amazon.com from neutral to buy. hexcel corp. (nyse: hxl ) shares climbed 1.98% to $41.18 after the company issued an improved eps outlook. alcoa inc. (nyse: aa ) rose 1.86% to $16.47 after the company reported better-than-expected fourth-quarter earnings. | 2015-01-13 |
j.p. morgan analyst rod hall commented tuesday on how gartner’s preliminary pc numbers impact apple inc (nasdaq: aapl ). “we believe that pc unit data is generally looking up for the first half of the year though asp trends remain downward. our main concern for the existing pc market is our apple ianywhere thesis which could begin to have a material negative impact this fall,” according to hall. the analyst note added that, according to gartner’s preliminary results, “global pc shipments were 83.7m units in q4’14, 2.8 percent better than our estimate of 81.4m. “in the us, pc shipments grew 13 percent y/y to 18.1m...while apple lost 0.2pp share y/y to 11.7 percent. “total pc shipments grew 2.8 percent y/y in emea to 26.5m and by 2 percent in apac to 26.6m units.” hall added that “gartner believes that the primary driver for growth was mobile pcs including notebooks and 2in1s. also, low priced notebooks in the $300-$200 price point reportedly boosted shipments.” the firm maintained an overweight rating on apple. apple inc traded at $110.53 in tuesday’s pre-market, up 1.17 percent. | 2015-01-13 |
kulbinder garcha of credit suisse on tuesday upgraded shares of apple (nasdaq: aapl ) to outperform from neutral with a price target raised to $130 from a previous $110 given a “solid and sustainable” iphone volume base. | 2015-01-13 |
tech giant apple inc. (nasdaq: aapl ) came out with the numbers for its 2014 app store sales. the company proclaimed of having generated $10 billion in revenues for developers through its app store and creation of over 620,000 jobs in us alone due to the ios ecosystem. smartling ceo jack welde, was on bloomberg to discuss the ‘app economy’ created by apple and its stability. “the $25 billion that has been generated through the apple app store is an extraordinary number,” welde said. that 50% growth from about $10 billion to $15 billion between 2013 and 2014 really implies that the app economy is real and when you consider the fact that about a million people a day will log on to the internet for the very first time and it’s probably out of smartphone, it’s probably on a mobile device. that implies there is an extraordinary global opportunity out there.” what about apple’s ‘real’ stores? “i see apple opening stores in china in places where they have a huge user base and i think it’s going to be important that companies and brands can reach consumers where they are,” welde said. “one of the nice things about smartphone apps and mobile apps is that your users are literally at their fingertips every single day interacting with your brand, but the more you can bring something like an apple store directly to your customers and give people that face to face genius bar support, the better off you are going to be.” is app development a stable job? “yeah, it’s absolutely a stable job. i would say the demand for high quality developers is extremely important and it is a global phenomena.” | 2015-01-12 |
in a recent report, brean capital provided an update on asian semiconductor and tech hardware sales. their numbers indicate a strong quarter in the space, with 12 of the 14 sectors outperforming. mobile and communications semiconductors analysts saw strong december performance out of apple inc (nasdaq: aapl ) suppliers such as foxconn , hon hai , catcher and pentagon . however, mixed month-over-month numbers after a record-setting november could be an indication that the apple ramp-up from iphone 6 is slowing. brean is now projecting 74 percent year-over-year growth in rf tam in china, which they consider to be a conservative estimate, given the $3.50 average rf content per device. tech hardware despite soft december shipment numbers, pc revenue was higher than expected for the month. analysts forecast 81-82 million pc unit shipments for 4q14, a quarter-over-quarter increase of one to two million units. this estimate is higher than the consensus estimate of flat shipment numbers. in addition, brean predicts 74-76 million pc unit shipments in 1q15 and 73-75 million shipments in 2q15. analysts estimate 300 to 305 million total shipments for 2015, but point out that many large customers are likely to undergo windows xp pc refreshing in 2015, which could boost shipment numbers. stock picks in the pc hardware space, analysts like current valuations based on enterprise value to free cash flow (ev/fcf) numbers. they see gross margin expansion of one to two percent over the next few years providing a boost to already undervalued stocks. brean has buy ratings on western digital corp (nasdaq: wdc ) , hewlett-packard co (nyse: hpq ) , seagate technology plc (nasdaq: stx ) , marvell technology group ltd (nasdaq: mrvl ) , netapp inc (nasdaq: ntap ) and qualcomm inc (nasdaq: qcom ) . | 2015-01-14 |
shares of gopro inc (nasdaq: gpro ) took a big hit on tuesday, on news that apple inc. (nasdaq: aapl ) has received a patent approval for a wearabale camera. john simons, business editor at international business times, was on cnbc wednesday to talk about apple’s patent and how when it comes to use will impact gopro’s business. “what we are talking about in terms of technology is very similar to many of the products that gopro has on the market right now, a camera that is mountable either on your body, on a bike helmet or on a bike or on any kind of equipment, adventure kind of equipment that you can think of,” simons said. what’s different about apple’s patent? “what’s different about apple’s patent, the company says, is that there’s inside of this device some kind of technology that helps to adjust for the ‘shaky camera’ effect and reduces that effect in the device,” simons said. how will this impact gopro? “well it really could cut into gopro’s market share quite a bit,” simons replied. “i mean gopro is a company that is less than a year old on the sort of public market place as a public company, their stock has fallen about nearly 50% since last fall and they have a pretty narrow product range. so, apple needs to at some time, even though it’s just a patent, apple needs to at some point figure out this wearables market. so, it may come out with something that looks like a gopro camera or it may introduce something that has this technology in it that we haven’t even thought of yet.” | 2015-01-14 |
apple inc (nasdaq: aapl ) has sued ericsson (adr) (nasdaq: eric ) over its lte wireless technology patents, claiming that the patents are “not essential to industry cellular standards and that it is demanding excessive royalties” for using the technology, according to a reuters report . ericsson is accused of demanding royalties calculated as a percentage of an entire smartphone or tablet price. apple argues that the royalty should be based on the value of the microchip that includes the lte technology. "we've always been willing to pay a fair price to secure the rights to standards essential patents covering technology in our products. unfortunately, we have not been able to agree with ericsson on a fair rate for their patents so, as a last resort, we are asking the courts for help," said apple spokeswoman kristin huguet. j.p. morgan also commented on the lawsuits between the two companies. apple inc recently traded at $108.87, down 1.23 percent. ericsson (adr) recently traded at $11.98, down 0.13 percent. | 2015-01-14 |
while all industries are required to constantly adapt to the demands of the modern world, perhaps no other industry has adapted more over the past 50 years than the music industry. the death of vinyl according to the recording industry association of america (riaa), 58.5 percent of music sold in 1983 was on vinyl, and nearly the entire balance (41.4 percent) was sold on cassette tapes. by 1993, 51.8 percent of all music sold was sold on cds. cassette tapes retained a strong potion of the market share with just over 44.5 percent of sales. however, in only 10 years, the vinyl format had become nearly extinct, falling from 58.5 percent of sales to a negligible 1.7 percent of sales. the rise and fall of the cd by 2003, the cd had gained the highest proportion of a single music format that had ever been tracked by the riaa: 94.4 percent. cassettes made up 2.2 percent of the market share, and vinyl accounted for only 0.7 percent. this time, the shift in the music industry was even more dramatic. by 2007, only four years after cds had dominated like never before, cds were down to only 27 percent of market share. the era of the ipod had begun, and digital and mobile downloads made up a combined 70.3 percent of music sales in 2007. the age of streaming now that 2015 is upon us, yet another major shift in the music industry is in its early stages. according to nielson entertainment , total album sales (including cds, cassettes, vinyl, and digital albums) fell by 9 percent in 2014. in addition, digital album downloads slipped by 9 percent in 2014. where has all the music gone lately? according to nielson, music streaming grew by a whopping 32 percent in 2014. streaming competition for investors looking to bet on the business of streaming music, there are plenty of choices. pandora media inc (nyse: p ) , google inc (nasdaq: goog ) (nasdaq: googl ) , apple inc (nasdaq: aapl ) and amazon inc (nasdaq: amzn ) are all currently competing for share in the music streaming space. | 2015-01-14 |
it seems that the pc market is moving toward stabilization as is evident from the recent worldwide pc shipment preliminary results for fourth-quarter 2014 released by two research firms — gartner and idc. although the data released by the companies have disparities, both the firms agree that there has been a slight improvement in the pc market. according to gartner's report, pc shipments during the fourth quarter improved 1% year over year to 83.7 million units with hewlett-packard company (nyse: hpq ) gaining the most — up 16% — in worldwide pc shipment. however, h-p's 18.8% market share is only second to lenovo group's 19.4%. boasting the market leading position, lenovo group's pc shipments grew 7.5%, while dell ended the quarter at the third place with 12.7% market share. acer group and asustek computer secured the fourth and fifth positions with respective market shares of 8.1% and 7.5%. on the other hand, idc reported that pc shipments have fallen 2.8% year over year to 80.8 million units. however, this is much lower than the research firm's earlier forecast of a 4.8% decline. further, pc shipments for full-year 2014 declined 2.1% year over year to 308.6 million units. moreover, according to idc, the fifth position, in terms of market share, is held by apple inc. (nasdaq: aapl ) with 7.1% share. per idc, lenovo, hewlett-packard, dell and acer hold the first, second, third and fourth position with respective market shares of 19.9%, 19.7%, 13.5% and 7.7%. the differences in results are mainly due to different techniques used for tracking pcs. for example, idc includes chromebooks which run on google inc.'s (nasdaq: googl ) chrome operating systems, while gartner does not. similarly, gartner includes certain microsoft corp. (nasdaq: msft ) machines, which idc considers to be tablets. both the firms believe that the improved pc shipment results are mainly driven by higher spending in mature markets due to system refreshes and enterprise system migrations beyond the microsoft xp operating system. the reduction in pc prices by vendors is turning out to be a positive factor. moreover, these firms stated that pc market cannibalization by tablets is weakening. both the firms noticed strong sales growth of pcs in the u.s., emea and western europe, while emerging markets lag due to strong attraction for smartphones and tablets. though the recent idc and gartner reports indicate an improving trend in the pc market, it is yet to be seen if the trend is sustainable. over the long run (until 2018), idc expects a further decline in pc shipments. idc had predicted that pc shipments will decline 3.3% in 2015, which compared unfavorably with an even earlier projection of a 2.3% decrease. one of the major reasons for the decline in pc sales is the cost of the devices. in the emerging markets, consumers are opting for relatively inexpensive mobile computing devices such as tablets at the entry level. to sum up, the current phase of system upgrades and pc refresh cycles remain the near-term catalysts for the industry. from a long-term perspective, pcs have to compete with other computing devices as returning to growth still remains a distant possibility. the decline will hurt the business prospects of companies like hewlett-packard and intel corporation (nasdaq: intc ) that rely substantially on the sale of pcs. currently, apple and intel sport a zacks rank #2 (buy), hewlett-packard and google have a zacks rank #3 (hold) while microsoft carries a zacks rank #4 (sell). want the latest recommendations from zacks investment research? today, you can download 7 best stocks for the next 30 days. click to get this free report intel corp (nasdaq: intc ): free stock analysis report apple inc (nasdaq: aapl ): free stock analysis report microsoft corp (nasdaq: msft ): free stock analysis report hewlett packard (nyse: hpq ): free stock analysis report google inc-cl a (nasdaq: googl ): free stock analysis report to read this article on zacks.com click here. zacks investment research | 2015-01-14 |
ericsson (nasdaq: eric ) and apple (nasdaq: aapl ) recently filed ipr-based lawsuits against each other. | 2015-01-14 |
jmp reiterated its market outperform rating on gopro inc (nasdaq: gpro ) wednesday along with its $105 price target following news that apple inc (nasdaq: aapl ) patented a competing camera. analyst alex gauna believed the sell-off was “overdone” following the “disclosure of a newly granted apple patent for a digital camera system with remote control.” “we have reviewed u.s. patent 8934045 in its entirety, and reached the conclusion that it represents minimal, if any, change to the gopro risk profile, as to us it hints more at a smartphone and smartwatch use case, and the mention of waterproofing and mounts are contextual rather than central to the application.” gauna did not think that apple was going to “make a direct foray” into gopro’s market and noted that at the ces 2015 trade there were “a good number of gopro imitators but none that were able to match the brand energy, performance, use cases, and/or software and social networking value proposition of the hero lineup.” gauna recommend “investors use the pullback to buy the stock ahead of what we expect to prove a solid upside 4q14 earnings season report.” the $105 price target was based on a “7x ev/cy16e sales multiple that represents an approximate 10 percent discount to the mean ntv ev/s metrics recently achieved by premium software, new media, and internet companies.” gopro inc recently traded at $52.24, up 4.75 percent. | 2015-01-14 |
the new york times is reporting that apple (aapl), google (goog), intel (intc) and adobe (adbe) are increasing their settlement offer in the class-action lawsuit that accuses the companies of agreeing to not compete for each other’s employees. the companies are now offering a combined $415 million to the 64,000 plaintiffs, up from a prior offer of $324.5 million. the settlement remains a small fraction of the cash on each company’s balance sheet. attorneys for the plaintiffs have accepted the offer, which now goes to the judge to approve or reject. previously, the judge rejected the $324.5 million deal, saying that it was not within a realm of reasonableness and hinting that the attorneys might have been too quick to take the sum to earn their high fees. in 2013, pixar, lucasfilm and intuit settled a similar lawsuit, paying a combined $20 million. at present, the case is set to move forward at trial this spring. | 2015-01-14 |
cramer thinks that it is not a good idea to own yahoo! inc. (nasdaq: yhoo ), alibaba group holding ltd (nyse: baba ) and apple inc. (nasdaq: aapl ) because yahoo! inc. is a turbo charged alibaba group holding ltd and he would own only one of them in a combination with apple inc. . cramer added that he would prefer to own yahoo! inc. . home depot inc (nyse: hd ) has been amazing, said cramer. he would buy the stock if it pulls back to $100. | 2015-01-14 |
apple inc. (nasdaq: aapl ) fell more than 2% today and continues to trade lower following mizuho securities analyst abhey lamba downgrading the stock from buy to neutral while keeping the price target unchanged at $115. lamba was seen recently on cnbc discussing the reasons for downgrading apple. “on the upside, i think if they kind of show that this much more than the margin expansion is possible today with the iphone 6 cycle than people are expecting and if that’s sustainable that could get the stock towards the upper end,” lamba said. “iphone 6 in general is a higher margin product, especially with the addition of the 6 plus, it’s a higher margin product.” he continued, “if they can ensure better [mix…] that can be sustained, then it can push toward the upper end, but keep in mind, iphone is such a big franchise for them, they need 40 to 50 million net new users to kind of keep growing that franchise and over time that’s going to get harder and harder for them to achieve.” what would be the margins for this product cycle? “yeah, historically the iphone margins have been between 48 to 58p and with the iphone 6 and 6 plus if you look at some of the data and studies it seems to be around 60p margin for that product. now, for iphone segment that would get diluted by 5c and 5s sales, but clearly there is potential for them to take it towards the upper end where they did in 2012, when their total gross margin was in the neighbourhood of 45 to 48p, they could get to about 42 to 43p in this cycle,” lamba said. | 2015-01-15 |
in a recent report, jpmorgan analysts gave their take on the 2015 outlook for telecom & networking equipment/it hardware. analysts made predictions on a wide range of topics from the smartphone deceleration to the impact of the apple watch. pc/tablet forecast analysts expect a strong start to 2015 when it comes to pc shipments. however, they expect tablet growth to begin to flatten this year. the report notes that this forecast would be significantly impacted if apple inc (nasdaq: aapl ) were to launch its ianywhere platform this year. apple watch the report predicts a launch of the apple watch to come in 1q15. analysts are predicting 25.6 million shipments for the year with a 30 percent ebit margin. if these numbers are accurate, the apple watch could provide a 4.3 percent boost to apple's 2015 earnings. 100g optical analysts are predicting verizon communications inc (nyse: vz ) will announce a rollout of metro 100g service in 1q15. analysts estimate that total wdm revenues grew by five percent in 2014. that overall growth number is based on a breakdown that includes a 68 percent increase in 100g revenues, a 38 percent decline in 40g revenues and a 12.3 percent decline in revenue for 10g and lower. telecom capex tightening analysts expect the lowest capex for the telecom industry since 2009. not surprisingly, they also predict the lowest revenues for the industry since 2009. smartphone saturation continues analysts see growth in smartphone shipments continuing to slow over the next two years. “we are currently forecasting smartphone shipments to grow 12.3% y/y in 2015 and 9.6% y/y in 2016.” stock picks the report included the following top stock picks in the sector: apple, corning inc (nyse: glw ) , ciena corp (nyse: cien ) , infinera corp (nasdaq: infn ) and hewlett-packard co (nyse: hpq ) . | 2015-01-15 |
target corporation (nyse: tgt ) +6% - offered favorable q4 guidance. gfi group inc. (nyse: gfi ) +2.4% - cme group revised its offer for gfi group. lennar corporation (nyse: len ) +2% - reported q4 financial results. ehealth inc. (nasdaq: ehth ) -51% - announced preliminary q4 eps. radioshack corporation (nyse: rsh ) -33% - reports surfaced that the company is preparing to file for bankruptcy blackberry ltd. (nasdaq: bbry ) -14% - samsung denied acquisition interest for blackberry. best buy co. inc . (nyse: bby ) -6.9% - announced holiday sales data, financial outlook. bank of america corp . (nyse: bac ) -1.8% - reported q4 financial results. citigroup inc. (nyse: c ) -1.6% - reported q4 financial results. apple inc. (nasdaq: aapl ) -0.6% - downgraded to neutral at mizuho securities. | 2015-01-15 |
analysts at mizuho securities downgraded apple inc. (nasdaq: aapl ) from buy to neutral. the price target for apple is set to $115. apple's shares closed at $109.80 yesterday. | 2015-01-15 |
analysts at mizuho securities downgraded apple inc. (nasdaq: aapl ) from buy to neutral. | 2015-01-15 |
in a report published thursday, mizuho securities analyst abhey lamba downgraded the rating on apple (nasdaq: aapl ) from buy to neutral, but reiterated the $115.00 price target. | 2015-01-15 |
there were rumors doing rounds on the street that apple inc. (nasdaq: aapl ) will stop using intel corporation (nasdaq: intc ) chips for its notebooks in the near future. however, brian krzanich, intel ceo, refuted those rumors on cnbc recently and also opined on how intel will be a dominant player in the mobile chip market in a few years. “our relationship with apple is great and their products are great,” krzanich said. “apple is always going to choose the supplier who can provide them the most amount of capability and innovation for them to build on for them to innovate. they are a company based on innovation.” he continued, “so, our job is to continue deliver products that have that capability that are better than our competitors and they want to use our parts. so, i wake up every morning making sure that across the board whether it’s apple or lenovo or dell or any of our customer, we have to provide the most competitive part –performance, price, reliability, all of those factors. why you think intel will dominate the mobile space five years down the line? “the mobile space is becoming more and more important,” krzanich said. “there is fewer and fewer companies who have modern capabilities or basically the ability to build communications devices and that’s becoming a commodity and ip, intellectual property, it’s very important and so, you need to have that, you need to build out your mobile capability for a long time in order to really set the pace in that area, so, that’s part of it.” “the other thing is that the customer, whether you want sell pcs, whether you want to sell service, most of them also want to have a single supply source where they can go to for those mobile products as well.” | 2015-01-16 |
in a span of three years since its inception, xiaomi has achieved a feat few could have believed possible, it’s now the worl’d third largest smartphone maker behind tech giant apple inc.(nasdaq: aapl ) and samsung. the company unveiled its new smartphone model, xiaomi note, in china today to compete against apple’s flagship product the iphone 6 plus. cnbc ’s eunice yoon reported on this new phone recently. “so, xiaomi translates to little rice, but this chinese company does have big ambitions,” yoon said. “it’s the third largest smartphone maker in the world behind apple and samsung and how did they do that? by selling cheap phones, but the smartphones are of decent quality. now, the company says that it’s going to go after the premium brands. today the ceo announced its latest phones, this is called the xiaomi note and they said that this phone is going to go directly head to head with apple’s iphone 6 plus. now, the phone itself packs a lot of punch, a lot of new features. they say that it’s going to have a 13 megapixel camera also 5.7-inch screen, another feature is going to be a hi-fi audio.” she continued, “ another thing is that generally they were saying this phone is going to be thinner, lighter and just a bit shorter than the iphone 6 plus, the price is also attractive at $371 for the base model, but for the pro version which is seen as the higher end model, that’s going to go for $532, which is cheaper than what the iphone 6plus goes for here in china, but at the same time it’s much more expensive than what the phones at xiaomi is known for here and it’s just another way that we are seeing xiaomi really go ahead with apple and apple’s second largest market.” | 2015-01-16 |
elsewhere in tech, more analysts shared their lofty expectations for apple inc.'s (nasdaq: aapl ) first watch. | 2015-01-17 |
google inc (nasdaq: goog ) (nasdaq: googl ) received a handful of bullish analyst ratings on wednesday, january 14, ahead of the company’s fourth quarter fiscal 2014 earnings report. google did not have the best year in 2014, and has fallen short on earnings expectations in four consecutive quarters. google shares have dropped 15 percent over the past six months as a result. one reason for this is due to the hit google’s android took after apple inc. (nasdaq: aapl )'s iphone 6 and iphone 6 plus saw huge success this fall. google’s search engine also took a hit in november when firefox's browser replaced google with yahoo! inc. (nasdaq: yhoo ) as its default search engine. related link: suntrust: don't dismiss google's dividend investors are concerned that google may face this issue again, as the company’s search engine contract with apple’s mobile safari browser will end in 2015. despite the negative rumors, it is being speculated that google could end up with over $80 billion in cash and marketable securities by the end of 2015, thus beginning a new dividend plan for investors. google is expected to report its q4fy14 earnings on january 29 after market close. suntrust analyst robert peck weighed in on google on january 14, maintaining a buy rating on the stock. looking on the bright side, the analyst noted: “one potential catalyst if growth is slowing [is] a dividend program.” peck believes this and other factors could be “potential positive surprises” that are getting overlooked because “investors are focused on potential negative surprises.” in addition, peck believes google’s stock price valuation conveys that shares could increase 10 percent. overall, robert peck has a 46 percent success rate recommending stocks and a +7.3 percent average return per recommendation. pivotal research analyst brian wieser also rated google on january 14, reiterating a buy and cutting his price target from $620 to $610. wieser noted: “many of the negative considerations we have been focused on – including compressing margins, investment of capital away from the company’s core competencies and government relations among others – have become more widely held among the investment community and make google attractive at current price levels.” brian wieser has an overall success rate of 77 percent recommending stocks and a +20.6 percent average return per recommendation. separately on january 14, credit suisse analyst stephen ju reiterated an outperform rating on google, but cut his price target from $722 to $700. the analyst wrote: “going in 4q14 earnings, we have updated our thoughts on google play and on google’s advertising business following our quarterly channel checks, and have elected to take a harder look at our estimates for each of google’s businesses as we revisit our product-by-product revenue build-out. in summary, we have taken a more conservative stance on search both o&o and network, increased r&d as well as capex, and have rolled through updated foreign exchange rates in a bid to derisk our projections.” overall, stephen ju has a 54 percent success rate recommending stocks and a +12.3 percent average return per recommendation. on average, the top analyst consensus for google on tipranks is moderate buy. | 2015-01-18 |
according to an article published in the wall street journal last week, google inc. (nasdaq: goog ) is engaged in exclusive negotiations to acquire softcard (formerly known as isis) -a mobile payments platform jointly owned by at&t, verizon and t-mobile - for at least $50 million, after the company downsized considerably . the move seeks to help google better compete with apple inc.’s (nasdaq: aapl ) apple pay, as google wallet continues to struggle for adoption. research firm kbw weighed in on the matter on tuesday morning, and below are some highlights from their comments. related topic: chardan comments on google glass after consumer sales are suspended, himax technologies could be at risk “while google was one of the early pioneers in the mobile payments space with a fully functioning payments ecosystem, it faced considerable road blocks such as carrier boycotts (due to the telcos monetary interests in softcard) and lack of merchant acceptance and issuer engagement, which resulted in limited consumer traction. a purchase of softcard would allow google access to a handset market previously closed off to its legacy google wallet product and would also enable the company to continue some of the progress softcard has had with engaging issuers and merchants (though engagement from this end is more muted relative to apple pay),” the report explained. but, while softcard would provide google with access to higher technology in the payments space, allowing it to ultimately compete with apple pay, as mobile payments continue to advance, “there still remains a fair amount of work to be done with softcard to bring it to a competitive level.” | 2015-01-20 |
even though apple inc. (nasdaq: aapl ) is hugely successful and has been growing its profits consistently over the last few year, most investors wonder why its stock continues to trade at a discount when compared to other tech and electronics majors. kevin o’leary was recently on cnbc to answer that question and to discuss why he isn’t ‘overweight’ on apple’s stock. “in terms of why apple doesn’t trade at a premium to market multiples because investors ask themselves this question every day, am i getting myself involved in a consumer electronics where i know the outcome over a long period of time,” o’leary said. “is it a sony, is it a motorola, is it a nokia or is it something completely different? and we don’t know the outcome of this because the more you see commoditization of handsets and soon to be launched watches; apple’s unique environment may or may not allow to hold its margins.” he continued, “so, when people say to me why don’t you think this is trading at a [27] premium because it’s growing so well even though it’s so large, that’s the reason. i have seen this movie before, now these stories in china are going to be hugely successful, just as they were in state side, i think they are more of the same and hopefully it’ll continue to spur growth, but that nagging concern about consumer electronics and their story is what keeps investors like me not overweight in this position. i own this stock, but i am not over weight it.” | 2015-01-20 |
most analysts who have predicted ‘great’ sales of apple inc. (nasdaq: aapl ) watch in its first year of launch have factored the dent in sales of luxury watches to reach their numbers. however, eleven james ceo, randy brandoff, thinks otherwise. eleven james is a annual membership club that allows member to rent luxury watches. brandoff was on fox business recently to discuss about his company. can the apple watch replace luxury watches? “fundamentally no,” brandoff said. “i actually think it’s very exciting because one you have worn, if you are a collector passionate about luxury watches, you love the intricacy. there’s history, there’s elegance there, there’ refinement there and it’s mechanical. as opposed to technology where next year there will be a better wearable, some of these watches, the technology was perfected a hundred, two hundred years ago.” how much does it costs? “eleven james is an annual membership club,” brandoff replied. “we have two simple choices, what type of watches you want to wear, they huddle around retail price points $10,000, $20,000 and $40,000 and what frequency …wear the watch two, three or four months at a time and pricing goes from as little as a few hundred dollars per months up till a little shy of $1,500 per month. what about women? “we do currently offer only a men’s or unisex collection, but about 5 to 10p of women are enjoing and wearing luxury watches and we are seeing that as well. we have women who are members n their own right, as well as couple, who are finding this a really fun thing to do together,” brandoff added. | 2015-01-21 |
facebook inc ’s (nasdaq: fb ) whatsapp platform announced a browser-based version of its messaging service on wednesday. the release was not made available, however, to apple inc (nasdaq: aapl ) ios users. on its blog , whatsapp stated, “unfortunately for now, we will not be able to provide web client to our ios users due to apple platform limitations.” gigaom commented on the issue but it was unclear why ios could not run the web client. according to the report, an ios version is coming but no timeframe has been provided. facebook inc recently traded at $76.78, up 0.71 percent. | 2015-01-21 |
apple inc. (nasdaq: aapl ) has reported record-breaking iphone sales results nearly every quarter for the past four years. the company is expected to keep the trend going when it reports its fiscal 2015 first quarter results on tuesday, january 27 at 5:00 p.m. et. | 2015-01-21 |
brian shannon thinks it’s possible for $105 to become a resistance level, instead of support. shannon is the founder of alphatrends, in addition to being a full-time trader, educator and author of “technical analysis using multiple timeframes.” he recently joined benzinga’s #premarket prep to talk about what might make shares of apple inc (nasdaq: aapl ) will drop below $105 and continue to fall. recent action first, he recapped the recent trading action starting with the peak at $120, followed by a decline to the $105 level. then the stock bounced back up to $115, but shannon explained it fell again and the sellers took control at about the $112, and it finally fell back to $105 again. “but what we’re starting to look like is the sellers get more aggressive price-wise, not waiting for the rallies up to $115 or $112 to take control, and the tests of support are becoming more frequent at this $105 level,” he said. moving back up for apple to become more neutral in the intermediate term, shannon thinks it needs to move above the $109 level and hold. to get back into positive territory, shannon said it would really have to take out the most recent low or high at $113. shannon views apple stock as being in “no-man’s land” at its current level, and that it could be setting up for a deline. the potential for decline shannon emphasized examining the $105 level. “if we break below there and hold below for a day or so, it seems likely that support we’re seeing in the $105 area will become resistance and the stock will decline further,” he said. he also talked about why he likes trading stocks like alibaba group holding ltd. (nyse: baba ) and gopro inc (nasdaq: gpro ) on the weekly options. check out his full interview here: don’t forget to tune in to benzinga’s #premarket prep broadcast monday-friday 8-9:45 a.m. et for a live, interactive morning show with veteran traders and featured finance industry experts ready to answer your questions for the trading day. | 2015-01-21 |
however, seymore sees the company benefiting from upcoming product launch catalyst such apple's (nasdaq: aapl ) forthcoming apple watch product. in addition, the company will also benefit from secular themes such as emv/nfc-enabled financial terminals. | 2015-01-21 |
specific rankings examples for apple, inc. (nasdaq: aapl ), starbucks corp. (nadaq: sbux), lululemon athletica, inc. (nasdaq: lulu ), tesla motors, inc. (nasdaq: tsla ) and sears holdings, inc. (nasdaq: shld ) are included below. | 2015-01-21 |
xoom corp. (nasdaq: xoom ) shares posted modest gains thursday after the company said its mobile money transfers application will incorporate fingerprint identification technology from apple inc. (nasdaq: aapl ). | 2015-01-22 |
microsoft corp (nasdaq: msft ) fired back at nay-sayers who claim the company has fallen behind peers like apple inc. (nasdaq: aapl ) and google inc. (nasdaq: goog ) in the tech race by unveiling a new operating system and some very impressive hardware on wednesday. windows 10 the company’s latest operating system, windows 10, is expected to shift microsoft’s business plan to make room for new devices and embrace the growing popularity of app purchases. the new system will be a free upgrade for many existing users, something that could cost the company as much as $500 million. however, microsoft is looking to make up for the lost revenue as customers spend on apps and new hardware. the future is here speaking of hardware, the talk of the town on wednesday was microsoft’s latest gadget, a holographic visor. the visor is able to project lifelike 3d images of everything from the surface of mars to a skype call. microsoft said the technology will be ready for mass markets in autumn when windows 10 is released, but critics believe the company will need more time to prepare the device for the general public. as with all wearables, it remains to be seen whether or not people will be willing to wear the visor, but it is expected to be a popular addition to video games like minecraft. virtual reality technology is expected to become a major part of computing in the coming years and it looks like microsoft will be the first to step into the new arena. | 2015-01-22 |
in a recent report, oppenheimer analysts updated their outlook for apple inc (nasdaq: aapl ) , and reiterated their outperform rating and $130.00 price target for the stock. analysts believe that apple’s 4q14 numbers will be strong, and they see plenty of upside for investors. underestimating the iphone the iphone has a long history of beating expectations, and analysts believe that iphone 6 is no exception. oppenheimer expects sales of the most recent iphone will drive apple’s earnings above consensus expectations for 4q14 and 1q15. they predict apple will announce earnings of $2.61 per share on revenue of $69.5 billion when they release q4 earnings next week. revising earnings models oppenheimer’s latest prediction of 27 percent year over year iphone shipment growth for q4 led analysts to revise their revenue expectations for 2015 and 2016. analysts now expect $226.7 billion in 2015 revenues on earnings of $8.13 per share. the new revenue estimate represents a 2.6 percent increase over oppenheimer’s previous revenue projection for the year, and it’s about 6.7 percent above consensus revenue estimates of $212.5 billion. lack of competition after attending the ces conference, analysts are convinced that the apple watch will see little serious competition for the time being. analysts see a window of exclusivity in the wearable watch space for apple for now, as none of the competition seems close to launching a comparable product. spring launches analysts are predicting launches of the apple watch and the next generation of ipads by march, and see big things from the company in 2015. “we believe that the enhanced product portfolio will effectively leverage apple’s overwhelming ecosystem advantage and help the company to address a wider consumer and enterprise audience.” | 2015-01-21 |
who will be the next apple inc. (nasdaq: aapl )? what company with what disruptive idea will turn the world of technology upside down? in this series, benzinga interviewed ceos of several technology startups that are making waves today in hopes of making a difference tomorrow. related: adapteva distributes initial production versions of the parallella computing platform adapteva, inc. – the parallella project adapteva, inc. ceo andreas olofsson imagines a world in which parallel computing is available to everyone – not just major institutions, governments and fortune 500 companies. “the premise of the company,” he told benzinga, “was that the future of all of computing would be parallel.” if so that would be a sea change since for the past 50 years or so, according to olofsson, everything has been serial. parallel versus serial put simply, the parallel computing process allows many calculations to be carried out simultaneously. this contrasts sharply with traditional serial computing in which calculations are carried out one after the other – in series. until now, olofsson said, parallel computing has existed mainly in the world of supercomputers where the ecosystem remains “the best hidden secret in the industry.” the parallella project to change that reality, and bring parallel computing into the mainstream, olofsson and adapteva created a kickstarter campaign called the parallella project to “build up a new ecosystem around parallel computing … for everybody.” the parallella campaign was successfully funded oct. 27, 2012. available and cheap enough according to olofsson, “to make people adopt a new technology you need to make something available and cheap enough.” mission accomplished. parallella, a high performance 18-core credit-card sized single board computer, is currently available on amazon for $99. adapteva’s epiphany multi-core chips provide the computing power for parallella. first come the geeks since applications for this ecosystem do not, for the most part, exist at this point, the first wave of users has been early adopters including developers and programmers. as olofsson put it, “this is essentially a blank canvas.” in addition to “a whole bunch of hackers and enthusiasts,” olofsson said, “we’re at all of the government labs and 200 universities.” “they understand this is the future,” he said, “and they want to get in and try it.” the next wave once developers and programmers have done their work,” olofsson said, “then the second wave can come along.” in its current form, parallella is “not the board for people who just want a computer,” olofsson said. “it’s still a pretty good computer,” he said, “even if you don’t turn on the epiphany on it,” adding, “but not really anything to write home about.” a future imagined the future, however, is where olofsson’s attention lies. “eventually anything that needs a lot of performance with very little energy,” he said, “needs to be parallel.” “we build chips that beat intel by 25x on energy efficiency,” olofsson said. “that’s a big number. it’s like driving from chile to argentina on one tank of gas.” ultimately, democratization of parallel computing - putting it in the hands of students and academics is a big deal according to olofsson. “if you think about the future of computing looking forward,” he said, “this is the only way to go.” related: ibm's watson coming to smartphones soon (ibm) 2015 and beyond “2015 is all going to be about getting this (parallel) architecture into an enterprise application,” olofsson said. “2015 will be the year for us when we are going to make an announcement there.” as for the long term, he said, “as we scale down, we will eventually have 64,000 cpu cores on a single chip the size of a fingernail.” that is something to write home about. at the time of this writing, jim probasco had no position in any mentioned securities. | 2015-01-21 |
the following are the m&a deals, rumors and chatter circulating on wall street for wednesday january 21, 2015 apple acquires musicmetric the rumor : apple, inc. (nasdaq: aapl ) has acquired music analytics service musicmetric, according to documents , reports music ally . the purchase price is said to be approximately $50m. | 2015-01-22 |
though prince alwaleed bin talal has most of his fortune invested in companies like citigroup inc (nyse: c ) (of which he is the largest individual shareholder) and apple inc. (nasdaq: aapl ) , he still has a sizeable businesses in the oil dependent saudi arabian economy. he was recently on cnbc to discuss whether saudi arabia is influencing oil prices and the outlook for oil. “i can assure you that saudi arabia is not using the oil price right now to impact [the] fracking industry in united states,” prince alwaleed said. “now, what has happened in the price of oil is that confluence of events, you had the oversupply in united states and the whole world and you had growth faded away in japan, china and […] and germany.” he continued, “so there’s oversupply and the growth and the demand is not so high. so, all those events caused the price of oil to go down. clearly as the side-effect of that and inevitable that some oil rigs in united states will be uneconomical and will have to shut down, but i can assure you also that we feel the pain in saudi arabia because saudi arabia budget depends 90p on oil. so, we also feel the pain a lot here.” where do you see oil heading in the future? “it’s inevitable that the price of oil, where it is right now below $50 that some oil rigs in united states and the fracking industry would be uneconomical and they have to shut down and we are already seeing indications of many of these rigs being withdrawn,” prince alwaleed said. “so, until and unless we reach the equilibrium point between supply and demand, the price may fluctuate between the $40 and $50 range." “however, in the medium to long-term it’s inevitable that the price of oil may go up a little more, but as i said that i think we’ll never see the price of oil again at $100.” | 2015-01-23 |
according to tech-specialized news outlet the information , google inc. (nasdaq: goog ) (nasdaq: googl ) is preparing to sell its own wireless voice and data plans “directly” to consumers -- three people familiar with the plans reportedly confirmed. apparently, the internet behemoth is expected to reach an agreement to buy wholesale access from sprint and t-mobile’s mobile data networks, and then resell it to its clients, thus becoming a mobile virtual network operator, or mvno. we see this as yet another google step toward direct competition with the carriers. in our experience, underutilized carriers tend to see resale deals as good news until they become too successful, at which point the carrier in question tends to take steps to make it tough for the reseller to continue to compete. should this typical pattern play out with cash rich google, we wouldn’t be surprised to see them decide to build their own network. also impacted by this decision is apple inc. (nasdaq: aapl ) , which once planned on creating its own mvno, but then desisted. now, apple is seeing increased competition from google in mobile-related areas, as the company continues to pair up with the largest wireless carriers in the u.s. in an attempt to dominate the whole mobile experience. just a couple of days ago, news broke about google engaged in exclusive negotiations to acquire softcard -- a mobile payments platform jointly owned by at&t, verizon and t-mobile. moreover, yet another incursion in the wireless arena transcended recently: earlier this week, google joined forces “with fidelity to invest $1 billion into spacex to reportedly help the company build a satellite-based wireless data service capable of reaching billions of people who now lack access to it.” | 2015-01-22 |
apple inc. (nasdaq: aapl ) and facebook inc's (nasdaq: fb ) instagram are making life difficult for entrepreneurs with marijuana-related businesses. buzzfeed details how instagram deleted "dozens of cannabis-related accounts" over the past few months. meanwhile, apple has been cracking down on apps that portray recreational use of the drug. | 2015-01-23 |
apple inc. (nasdaq: aapl ) smartphone sales will peak in the current period and the company's shares lack a near-term catalyst, an analyst said friday. | 2015-01-23 |
investors are anxiously waiting to see how apple inc. (nasdaq: aapl ) performed during the december quarter. | 2015-01-23 |
analysts at jpmorgan on friday suggested that apple's (nasdaq: aapl ) upcoming watch may have battery issues. | 2015-01-23 |
“the december quarter upside was predominantly driven by the integrated solutions segment as apple's (nasdaq: aapl ) iphone 6/6+ ramped,” burton wrote. “looking forward, we believe lte growth in china and several new model ramps (samsung galaxy s6 amongst others to be unveiled in barcelona) coupled with skyworks solutions less seasonal broad markets business is driving the better-than-seasonal guidance for the march quarter.” | 2015-01-23 |
hedge fund manager josh van dress prefers to pairs trade apple inc. (nasdaq: aapl ) against a short in microsoft corporation (nasdaq: msft ). the cio at able capital management was recently on benzinga’s #premarket prep to discuss his market-neutral pairs trading strategy. generally, van dress uses a combination of fundamental and technical algorithms to choose an investment strategy. then, he will layer into a position – first adding the core investment position that will become a 60-90 day hold. secondly, able capital management puts on three or four differentiating pairs to ensure market neutrality. that second layer is full of short-term positions that he bases on 20-day patterns. in relation to apple, van dress looks to pair it primarily with microsoft. the manager pointed to microsoft’s relatively stability and the absence of news catalysts that could propel the stock significantly higher. in addition, the company has a large float – meaning that the stock is easy to find and short. van dress also mentioned that he may also use the ishares russell 2000 index (nysearca:iwm) to offset a long apple position. check out the full interview here: don’t forget to tune in to benzinga’s #premarket prep broadcast monday-friday 8-9:45 a.m. et for a live, interactive morning show with veteran traders and featured finance industry experts ready to answer your questions for the trading day. | 2015-01-23 |
microsoft corporation (nasdaq: msft ) was expected to focus exclusively on windows 10 during its press event this week. instead the company took the opportunity to promote an entirely new product alongside its next-generation operating system. apple inc. (nasdaq: aapl ) is expected to report high iphone 6 sales this week. unfortunately, investors might be distracted by apple's guidance, particularly as it relates to the apple watch. | 2015-01-24 |
the earnings crunch is on this week. tech and internet giants will be stepping into the earnings spotlight, with forecasts calling for profit growth from apple inc. (nasdaq: aapl ), facebook inc (nasdaq: fb ) and google inc (nasdaq: googl ) but shrinking profits from amazon.com, inc. (nasdaq: amzn ), microsoft corporation (nasdaq: msft ) and yahoo! inc. (nasdaq: yhoo ). | 2015-01-25 |
chowdhry has experience rating big name stocks, such as apple (nasdaq: aapl ) and tableau (nyse: data ), helping him earn an overall success rate of 67 percent recommending stocks and a +22.8 percent average return per recommendation. | 2015-01-26 |
will power, senior research analyst at robert w. baird & co., was on cnbc to discuss the expectations from quarterly results of apple inc. (nasdaq: aapl ) and will the company continue to make gains in china. “our expectation is, not only are they going to have a strong quarter, but we think the guidance will prove encouraging too and obviously the focus will be on iphones, but we think there’s nice upside potential to asps and gross margins and we think that can still drive shares higher from here,” power said. is a big share buyback on the cards? “look, this is a company that generates $50 billion a year in free cash flows,” power replied. “so at a minimum they got to find a way to spend that and of course on top of that they have got another $150 billion plus sitting on the balance sheet. so, there’s no question, there’s lot of capacity there. our expectation is that [it] will get addressed in the april time frame which has been there recent history and little question that we’ll see a update in higher numbers there going forward.” is there still room for apple to grow in china? “well, i think there’s a big opportunity,” power said. “their share is still probably single digits, that’s a market that has been dominated by android and lower-end phones, but look there’s a big middle class, needless to say in china that continues to be enormous opportunities. i think one of things that’s been encouraging for us is been the signs from various studies that suggests they have regained a fair amount of share not only in asia, but also throughout europe and even in samsung’s home market.” | 2015-01-26 |
this article was produced by capital market labs. learn how the company is bringing the power of living data to the world of finance. apple inc. (nasdaq: aapl ) will release earnings this tuesday, and they're being watched by everyone in the financial markets. one area being overlooked, though, is the options market. risk of future movements in stock price is reflected in the option market, in the form of implied volatility. let’s look at the 30-day implied volatility over the last year for apple. implied volatility is the forward-looking risk in the equity price, as reflected by the option market (iv30™ looks forward exactly 30 calendar days). in english, the red curve is the risk in future stock price movement. the blue “e” icons represent earnings release dates, circled in yellow. notice the levels of risk priced into earnings for the prior four earnings releases, and then the level of risk this week. let’s make it easier with this next chart… that's the same chart, though all data points other than the past earnings releases (and this week) have been removed. it's clear: the level of risk (iv30) now is higher than it has been for any of the prior earnings releases in the last year. but there’s more… approaching the earnings release, implied volatility should rise. that trend is evident in the first chart. rather than explain why that happens, let’s accept it as a tautology, and then apply it to this situation. in short: the level of risk as reflected by the option market into apple earnings is higher now than it has been for any of the prior earnings, and…that risk level should rise moving closer to the earnings date. is there risk in apple earnings? yes. is the risk high? yes. how high is it? higher than at any point in the last year, including four prior earnings releases. so buckle up. the information apple is about to share is enormous. ophir gottlieb can be found on twitter @ophirgottlieb | 2015-01-26 |
morgan stanley research came out with their best ideas in north america. all of the picks are outlined below, but of these, morgan sees the most upside in steel dynamics (+61 percent), kors (+57 percent), amazon.com (+44 percent) and salesforce.com (+41 percent). here is a highlight of morgan stanley’s arguments: amazon.com, inc. (nasdaq: amzn ): katy huberty believes that the low institutional ownership and potential to increase eps through lower investment are catalysts that will drive the price higher. price target is $420. apple inc. (nasdaq: aapl ): iphone in the midst of a “super upgrade cycle” that will drive new purchases over the next two years. in addition, pessimism about the watch will prove faulty. price target is $126. canadian pacific railway limited (tse:cp): story is turning to a “structural growth play.” free cash could lead to a 5-10 percent share buyback, driving eps growth to the high teens by 2018. price target is c$278. delphi automotive plc (nyse: dlph ): among global auto suppliers, morgan stanley notes that delphi is best of breed and is positioned to become a “mega supplier” – leading to revenues that grow twice what the industry does. price target is $90. macy’s, inc. (nyse: m ): morgan says that macy’s management is on the right track to deliver long-term sales growth with three main initiatives. yet, despite that, its valuation is inexpensive versus its peers. price target is $70. michael kors holdings ltd (nyse: kors ): kors trades below its 5-year average, making it the only stock on morgan stanley’s list to do that. the management here is strong as well, with leadership finding new avenues for revenue growth. price target is $105. prudential financial inc (nyse: pru ): translating peer multiples to prudential’s stats, morgan stanley comes up with a price target of $102. however, there are some risks, including higher capital requirements and adverse currency fluctuations. salesforce.com, inc (nyse: crm ): salesforce is positioned in key secular trends, including mobile, internet of things and cloud computing, according to analyst keith weiss. as the company sustains mid-20s top-line growth, it will be able to forge a clear path to 30 percent operating margins. price target is $80. steel dynamics, inc. (nasdaq: stld ): morgan stanley is the most bullish on steel dynamics relative to current price. the company notes that recent declines in steel prices matter less than margins, which sd can support based on scrap metal prices falling relatively faster than steel. price target is $28. | 2015-01-26 |
piper jaffray analyst gene munster now believes that apple inc. (nasdaq: aapl ) will report it sold 65 million iphones in q2, up from a prior estimate of 61 million. piper’s estimate is still below many other analysts, with morgan stanley and kgi securities estimating sales of 69 and 73 million, respectively. moving forward, munster noted that he believes apple will provide a higher-than-expected revenue guidance for the next quarter as demand for the iphone 6 is particularly strong. revenues for the march quarter are expected at $53.7 billion. piper maintained its overweight rating and reaffirmed a $135 price target. apple reports earnings tuesday after the closing bell. | 2015-01-26 |
morgan stanley previewed earnings for semiconductor stocks monday. analysts led by joseph moore saw most of the companies reporting inline with with estimates. texas instruments incorporated (nasdaq: txn ) was expected to report q4 inline with expectations but the firm had modeled revenues to come in a $3.2 billion versus the consensus of $3.3 billion along with eps of $0.68, $0.01 below consensus. moore saw q1 eps coming down by $0.10 due to increased r&d and seasonally weak sales. texas instruments incorporated reports earnings january 26 and was rated equal-weight with a $45 price target. invensense inc (nyse: invn ) was expected to beat consensus for the december quarter with revenue of $113 million versus expectations of $112 million and non-gaap eps of $0.21, $0.01 higher than consensus. the firm also expected the current quarter march quarter to be inline with estimates of $0.13 eps. moore wanted to see more control of expenses by management to get more constructive on the stock. invensense reports earnings january 29 and was rated equal-weight with an $18 price target. freescale semiconductor ltd (nyse: fsl ) was expected to report inline with expectations for the december quarter with sales at $1.1 billion but the firm was below consensus on eps at $0.31versus the street at $0.33. the analysts were looking for a better entry point on the stock after already gained 44 percent following its q3 earnings. freescale semiconductor ltd reports earnings january 27 and was rated equal-weight with a $26 price target. cavium inc (nasdaq: cavm ) was expected to report inline with consensus with $101 million in revenue and eps at $0.41 but the firm also saw “choppy demand for china base station business and slight slowdown in north america enterprise market.” cavium inc reports earnings january 28 and was rated overweight with a $49 price target. the firm expected microchip technology inc. (nasdaq: mchp ) to report revenue of $523 million versus consensus of $525 million and eps of $0.61, $0.01 below consensus. the analysts modeled sales to decline in the december quarter but be up 2.5 percent in the march quarter to $536 million versus the street at $540 million. the analysts will be watching for lead times, inventory distribution and demand in china. microchip technology inc. reports earnings january 29 and was rated equal-weight with a $49 price target. broadcom corporation (nasdaq: brcm ) was expected to report q4 sales of $2.12 billion, slightly above street expectations of $2.11 billion mostly due to the strength of apple inc (nasdaq: aapl ) sales. the eps estimate matched the street at $0.87. the march quarter was expected to come in 4 percent below the street at $1.93 billion on an expected decline in mobile sales with eps of $0.68 versus consensus of $0.75. over the long-term, the analysts were bullish on the stock. broadcom corporation reports earnings january 29 and was rated overweight with a $47 price target. | 2015-01-26 |
maynard um of wells fargo commented in a note on monday that apple (nasdaq: aapl ) will need to “materially beat” expectations in its upcoming first quarter results. | 2015-01-26 |
-apple (nasdaq: aapl ) stock still cheap..even at 150 it would be cheap | 2015-01-26 |
shares of aapl are up .62 percent in pre-market trading. | 2015-01-26 |
apple inc. (nasdaq: aapl ) is reporting fourth quarter earnings tomorrow, tuesday january 27, after the close. needles to say, aapl earnings are always followed closely, and this quarter will be no exception, especially given that the fourth quarter is the holiday sales quarter. | 2015-01-26 |
apple inc. (nasdaq: aapl ) finally unveiled the apple watch last september, proving once and for all that the product is real. | 2015-01-27 |
yahoo! inc . (nasdaq: yhoo ) +7.5% - released q4 eps, offered q1 outlook. united states steel corp. (nyse: x ) +8% - reported q4 eps. apple inc. (nasdaq: aapl ) +5% - announced q1 eps, q2 guidance. electronic arts (nasdaq: ea ) +5% - announced q4 results. juniper networks (nyse: jnpr ) +5% - released q4 eps. at&t inc. (nyse: t ) +2% - reported q4 financial results. | 2015-01-27 |
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This dataset contains news articles and headlines about AAPL, AMZN, TSLA, GOOG, MSFT, META, BABA, and NVDA from January 1, 2015 to January 30, 2024. The data was pulled from Alpaca Markets' API.
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