Stock Trading

For the past several months, I have been working on a model to predict the direction a stock will move after the company reports its quarterly earnings. The underlying assumption is that the level of expectations leading up to the announcement is more important than the actual numbers that the company reports.If expectations are unusually high going into the announcement, something in the announcement invariably seems to disappoint investors, and the stock price usually falls, regardless of how well the company does compared to analyst expectations (or even whisper numbers).The disappointment might be based on something other than earnings - it could be revenues, margins, or guidance, or something entirely different, like an expected dividend boost that didn't come through. In any event, when expectations are through the roof, the chances of some kind of disappointment and a lower stock price are increased dramatically.Surely, anyone who has

This article analyzes the most recent quarterly and the trailing twelve months ("TTM") results of Williams Partners, L.P. (WPZ) and looks "under the hood" to properly ascertain sustainability of Distributable Cash Flow ("DCF"). The task is not easy because the definitions of DCF and "Adjusted EBITDA", the primary measures typically used by master limited partnerships ("MLPs") to evaluate their operating results, are complex. In addition, each MLP may define these terms differently, making comparison across MLPs very difficult. Nevertheless, this is an exercise that must be undertaken to ascertain what portions of the distributions being received are really sustainable.Effective January 1, 2013, management reorganized the businesses into geographically based operational areas. WPZ's reorganized reportable segments are as follows: Northeast G&P: this midstream gathering and processing segment is in the early stages of developing large-scale energy infrastructure solutions for the Marcellus and Utica shale regions. It also includes a 51%

One Approach for Investing in Emerging Biotechnology Stocks I write on biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies of all sizes, but I have spent much of the last year focusing on small biotechnology companies ranging in size from as low as $50 million in market capitalization.to about $400 million. There is much less analyst and investor attention on these stocks, which can lead to pricing inefficiencies. There is also considerable risk as the investment thesis for the stocks often hinges on the outcome of a single clinical trial. While I don't have precise statistics, my impression is that more than half of late stage trials fail. These investment opportunities fit my asymmetric investing approach.What do I mean by asymmetric investing? Some hedge funds have made enormous returns by looking for asymmetric investment opportunities. These stem from finding upcoming events that are not well understood and that have the potential to cause

JA Solar Holdings Co. (NASDAQ:JASO) will report earnings before markets open on Monday, May 20th. JA Solar Holdings Company, Ltd. manufactures solar cells. The Company sells its products principally to solar module manufacturers, which assemble and integrate its products into modules and systems. Here is your Cheat Sheet to Ja Solar Holdings Co. Earnings: Earnings Expectations: Analysts expect earnings of $-1.20 per share on revenues of $228.97 million. Analyst Trends: Analysts have a more negative outlook for the company’s next-quarter performance. Over the past three months, the average estimate for next quarter’s earnings has fallen from a loss of $0.95 to a loss $0.97. For the current year, the average estimate is a loss of $3.75, which is better than the estimate ninety days ago. Earnings Trends: Here’s how Ja Solar Holdings Co. has been performing on an annual basis: Fiscal Year 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 Revenue ($) in millions 801.13 554.27 1,779 1,701 1,077 Diluted EPS ($) -1.695 -0.8801 8.023 -2.679 -6.835 Next, our CHEAT SHEET investing framework asks us to drill down to the recent quarterly data: Quarter Dec. 31, 2011 Mar. 31, 2012 Jun. 30, 2012 Sep. 30, 2012 Dec. 31, 2012 Revenue ($) in millions 308.40 254.08 284.18 260.22 267.68 Diluted EPS ($) -1.939 -1.015 -1.840 -1.515 -2.413 Past Performance: Ja Solar Holdings Co. has missed analyst estimates 4 times in the past four quarters. Shareholders could expect a bust if the company misses estimates. “E = Earnings Are Increasing Quarter-Over-Quarter” is a core component of our successful CHEAT SHEET investing framework. Don’t waste another minute – click here to discover our CHEAT SHEET stock picks now! (Company fundamentals provided by Xignite Financials. Email any earnings discrepancies to earnings [at] wallstcheatsheet.com) Read the original article from Wall St. Cheat Sheet

Is Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) seemingly arbitrary removal of apps from its App Store part of a strategy to intimidate other companies? Many Apple executive’s emails have entered the public record as part of the U.S. Department of Justice’s antitrust lawsuit against the Cupertino-based company. Although Steve Jobs’ emails to the head of HarperCollins regarding e-book pricing are getting most of the press, Mike Elgan at Cult of Mac noticed another disturbing trend in some other company emails. Is Apple now a once-in-a-decade buying opportunity? Click here to get your 24-page Ultimate Cheat Sheet to Apple’s Stock now! Elgan notes that Random House’s CEO accused Apple of threatening to ban a Random House e-book app if the publisher refused to agree to Apple’s e-book pricing terms. This accusation seems to be backed up by the email records in which Jobs states that Random House would “suffer a loss of support from Apple.” Although Apple has removed many apps that clearly violate its app developer guidelines, others seem to be removed merely for having a whiff of controversy, like the Bang With Friends app that was removed last week. Although Apple certainly has every right to ban apps that clearly break the rules, removing apps without clear cause can be detrimental to the overall App Store environment. More importantly, the seemingly arbitrary nature of some of the app bans creates a precedent for Apple to use its dictatorial banning powers for more nefarious means – such as banning a company’s app in order to pressure it into agreeing to an unrelated contract. Although many commentators speculate that the Bang With Friends app was likely removed for its racy title, a Bang With Friends spokesperson said Apple had not yet revealed its reason for the ban. Even when Apple bans an app like AppGratis that probably did violate the developer guidelines, it seems to prefer to remain tight-lipped about its reasoning. Simon Dawlat, the CEO of AppGratis, complained that “The first communication from Apple we received was an email sent to us after our App had been removed.” Although Apple was probably justified in its ban of AppGratis, keeping the process opaque still creates the appearance of arbitrariness. There’s nothing wrong with enforcing the rules. However, it would benefit Apple’s users and developers for the rules to be clearly explicated and referenced when Apple decides to enforce a ban. This helps to create an atmosphere of fairness as well as protect Apple from accusations of using its app-banning powers as a tool to punish unwilling business associates. NEW! Discover a new stock idea each week for less than the cost of 1 trade. CLICK HERE for your Weekly Stock Cheat Sheets NOW! Here’s how Apple has traded over the past week. Follow Nathanael on Twitter (@ArnoldEtan_WSCS) Don’t Miss: Apple Goes Big With New Display Technology. Read the original article from Wall St. Cheat Sheet

Campbell Soup (NYSE:CPB) will report earnings before markets open on Monday, May 20th. Campbell Soup Company, with its subsidiaries, manufactures and markets branded convenience food products. The Company’s core divisions include soups and sauces, biscuits and confectionery, and foodservice. Campbell’s distributes its products worldwide. Here is your Cheat Sheet to Campbell Soup Earnings: Earnings Expectations: Analysts expect earnings of $0.56 per share on revenues of $2.04 billion. Currently, the company’s P/E ratio stands at 19.87. Analyst Trends: Analysts have a more negative outlook for the company’s next-quarter performance. Over the past three months, the average estimate for next quarter’s earnings has fallen from a profit of $0.43 to a profit $0.42. For the current year, the average estimate is a profit of $2.56, which is better than the estimate ninety days ago. Earnings Trends: Here’s how Campbell Soup has been performing on an annual basis: Fiscal Year 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 Revenue ($) in millions 7,998 7,586 7,676 7,719 7,707 Diluted EPS ($) 3.06 2.05 2.42 2.42 2.41 Next, our CHEAT SHEET investing framework asks us to drill down to the recent quarterly data: Quarter Jan. 31, 2012 Apr. 30, 2012 Jul. 31, 2012 Oct. 31, 2012 Jan. 31, 2013 Revenue ($) in millions 2,112 1,821 1,613 2,336 2,333 Diluted EPS ($) 0.64 0.55 0.4019 0.78 0.60 Past Performance: Campbell Soup has beat analyst estimates 4 times in the past four quarters. Shareholders could expect a boost if the company beats estimates. “E = Earnings Are Increasing Quarter-Over-Quarter” is a core component of our successful CHEAT SHEET investing framework. Don’t waste another minute – click here to discover our CHEAT SHEET stock picks now! (Company fundamentals provided by Xignite Financials. Email any earnings discrepancies to earnings [at] wallstcheatsheet.com) Read the original article from Wall St. Cheat Sheet

Compuware (NASDAQ:CPWR) will report earnings after markets close on Tuesday, May 21st. Compuware Corporation provides software products and information technology(NYSE:IT) solutions. The Company offers a set of integrated solutions for enterprise IT including IT portfolio management, application development, quality assurance and IT service management. Here is your Cheat Sheet to Compuware Earnings: Earnings Expectations: Analysts expect earnings of $0.05 per share on revenues of $239.68 million. Currently, the company’s P/E ratio stands at 34.88. Analyst Trends: Analysts have a more negative outlook for the company’s next-quarter performance. Over the past three months, the average estimate for next quarter’s earnings has fallen from a profit of $0.07 to a profit $0.06. For the current year, the average estimate is a profit of $0.26, which is worse than the estimate ninety days ago. Earnings Trends: Here’s how Compuware has been performing on an annual basis: Fiscal Year 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 Revenue ($) in millions 1,230 1,090 892.18 928.93 1,010 Diluted EPS ($) 0.47 0.55 0.60 0.48 0.40 Next, our CHEAT SHEET investing framework asks us to drill down to the recent quarterly data: Quarter Dec. 31, 2011 Mar. 31, 2012 Jun. 30, 2012 Sep. 30, 2012 Dec. 31, 2012 Revenue ($) in millions 253.06 266.04 226.16 220.60 257.87 Diluted EPS ($) 0.10 0.1158 0.05 0.05 0.12 Past Performance: Compuware has beat analyst estimates 1 time in the past four quarters. This is not consistent enough to get bullish yet. “E = Earnings Are Increasing Quarter-Over-Quarter” is a core component of our successful CHEAT SHEET investing framework. Don’t waste another minute – click here to discover our CHEAT SHEET stock picks now! (Company fundamentals provided by Xignite Financials. Email any earnings discrepancies to earnings [at] wallstcheatsheet.com) Read the original article from Wall St. Cheat Sheet

Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) had its first birthday yesterday after becoming a publicly traded company. The social media darling has been under a scrutinizing gaze from analysts and investors ever since it started trading on the NASDAQ. Its stock has taken a beating over this past year and while it is currently trading much higher than its low in September 2012, it has yet to reach its IPO price. So what has the company accomplished during its first year as a public company? What has it botched? The answer for both questions is mobile. NEW! Discover a new stock idea each week for less than the cost of 1 trade. CLICK HERE for your Weekly Stock Cheat Sheets NOW! The company experienced a year-over-year mobile ad revenue increase to about 30 percent, according to the Christian Science Monitor. Low mobile ad revenue was something that helped push Facebook’s stock to its lowest last year. Social media users are increasingly glued to their smartphones and tablets. Getting itself in front of those users who predominantly used their PCs for the same purpose when the company was founded is key to the company’s future. However, Facebook took a swing to knock a mobile home run out of the park this year in the form of Facebook Home but whiffed. Facebook Home was supposed to be the long awaited “Facebook Phone” but turned out to just be an annoying, Facebook-centric user interface skin placed over Google’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android operating system on select smartphones. In fact, sales of the HTC First have been so bad the phone’s price with a carrier contract has been cut from its initial $99 to 99 cents in just a few weeks. NEW! Discover a new stock idea each week for less than the cost of 1 trade. CLICK HERE for your Weekly Stock Cheat Sheets NOW! Facebook’s future is far from clear cut. There is fear that the company’s most profitable market — the United States and Canada — has reached a saturation point. Given how profitable U.S. and Canadian Facebook users are to the company compared to even Europe, this means the company has to either figure out how to either better monetize users not surfing the social media site from North America or get non-North American users signing up in greater numbers. For the company to be successful down the road, it must avoid monetizing itself in such a way that its ads become more trouble than the usefulness of the social media site is worth in the eyes of its users. The company definitely has room for growth in both advertisement revenue and monthly users but keeping its user base engaged is essential. Facebook needs everyone to still be using it ten years down the road from now. Below is a graph of Facebook’s stock price over the past year. Image courtesy of Yahoo! Finance Don’t Miss: Facebook’s First Year in Review: Is the Glass Half Full? Read the original article from Wall St. Cheat Sheet

Monday After taking a scary dip in early April, Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) stock stabilized somewhat in the last week, staying above the level of $450 per share for the entire five-day period. Despite experiencing some minor rises and falls, the stock has advanced nearly 16 percent since closing at a 52-week low of $385.10 on April 19. Shares continued trading within their current range Monday, closing up $1.77, or 0.39 percent, at $454.74. Here’s a cheat sheet to today’s top Apple stories: Is Apple now a once-in-a-decade buying opportunity? Click here to get your 24-page Ultimate Cheat Sheet to Apple’s Stock now! Finally, Apple Gets Pentagon Approval After being beaten in the race to get Pentagon approval by rivals BlackBerry (NASDAQ:BBRY) and Samsung (SSNLF.PK); Apple has finally received its Department of Defense security approval. The recent approval covers all of Apple’s iOS 6-powered devices. Earlier this month, BlackBerry won security approval for its BlackBerry 10 operating system, and Samsung won approval of its Android Knox-based mobile devices. Although Samsung’s standard devices do not meet the military’s security specifications, the South Korea-based smartphone maker was allowed to beef up its security with Knox Security software… (Read more.) Could This Be the Future of Apple’s iOS? Could this be the iOS 7 reboot that Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) users have been waiting for? Simply Zesty, a full service digital agency based in the UK, has created an amazing concept video that outlines the expected design changes that users are anticipating for Apple’s new mobile operating system. Simply Zesty describes its video as “our concept designs for iOS 7, gathered from the rumours, speculation and features we think Apple should include on the new OS.” Apple will officially unveil the new iOS 7 at the Worldwide Developers Conference, scheduled for June 10-14. Apple’s iOS has not had a major makeover since the iPhone’s debut in 2007, and this could be a make-or-break scenario for the next generation of Apple’s mobile operating system… (Read more.) Major Apple Supplier Gets April Sales Bump After posting a first quarter drop in earnings revenue, Foxconn, also known as Hon Hai Precision Industry, has seen its latest figures rise. According to Patently Apple, Foxconn saw a 12 percent monthly increase in total sales for April due to an increased demand for consumer electronics products. Foxconn is one of Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) largest suppliers, with an estimated 40 percent of its total sales revenue derived from the Cupertino-based company… (Read more.) NEW! Discover a new stock idea each week for less than the cost of 1 trade. CLICK HERE for your Weekly Stock Cheat Sheets NOW! Don’t Miss: Is Apple Ignoring a Growing Screen Size Trend? Tuesday As Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) seeks to build relations beyond its main supplier Foxconn and attempts to add Samsung (SSNLF.PK), shares of the iPhone maker slumped on Tuesday. Following Monday’s gains, the stock ended the day down $10.88, or 2.39 percent, at $443.86. Here’s a cheat sheet to today’s top Apple stories: Is the Average Joe Still Buying Apple? Apple has come under a great deal of scrutiny over the past several months. The world’s largest publicly traded company suffered a sharp correction that started last year, and faces worries about new product offerings on an almost daily basis. However, the average joe investor still believes in Apple. Is Apple now a once-in-a-decade buying opportunity? Click here to get your 24-page Ultimate Cheat Sheet to Apple’s Stock now! Shares of Apple dropped nearly 17 percent in the first quarter, compared to double-digit gains in the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500. In April, the company’s stock price even reached a fresh 52-week low of $385. Many investors saw this as a buying opportunity, though. According to brokerage firm TD Ameritrade, more of its clients now own Apple than ever before. In fact, Apple is the most widely held stock in terms of dollar

Like a child who grows too big to tolerate an embarrassing nickname, GM (NYSE:GM) appears ready to stare down name-callers who speak the “Government Motors” moniker. Between its strong sales data, investment in new cars, improved public image and return of stock prices to IPO levels, the signs point to a bona fide General Motors revival. The news has been almost entirely positive for GM over the past year, in which stock prices surged more than 50 percent to reach the level of its November 2010 IPO while sales increase domestically and overseas. It’s safe to say the company benefited from the positive exposure during the 2012 presidential election, when President Obama brandished the success of Detroit automakers like a weapon against opponent Mitt Romney. Clearly, Americans felt good about the Detroit comeback and voted accordingly. NEW! Discover a new stock idea each week for less than the cost of 1 trade. CLICK HERE for your Weekly Stock Cheat Sheets NOW! Success for General Motors and Ford (NYSE:F) meant the administration’s economic policies were working, including the bailout and loans handed to the automakers by the government. Those days of government attachment appear to be over (and happily so) for GM, as the Treasury department continues dumping company stock and expects to exit completely by early next year. Once that happens, GM will be eligible to return to the S&P 500. Of course, the company’s success will only continue if it makes its customers happy enough to become repeat customers. The satisfaction levels for GM are among their highest levels ever, due to a concerted effort by the company to bring back customers and get them dreaming about Detroit cars the way they did in the Big 3′s heyday. J.D. Power’s Customer Service index shows Cadillac, Buick and GMC all scoring in the top three of their respective categories in customer estimation. NEW! Discover a new stock idea each week for less than the cost of 1 trade. CLICK HERE for your Weekly Stock Cheat Sheets NOW! In another display of GM’s return to form, real estate developers are planning a car condominium project on the site of a former GM plant in Pontiac, Michigan. Car enthusiasts will be able to house their car collections and enjoy the comforts of a country club while entertaining guests at the proposed site. Automakers hope they will see some of the new Corvettes to go along with the classic versions bound to pop up in the condos in Pontiac. GM is poised to celebrate a legitimate revival. Don’t Miss: GM Aims For Its Achilles’ Heel: Customer Loyalty. Read the original article from Wall St. Cheat Sheet