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Donaldson Company (NYSE:DCI) recently reported its third quarter earnings and discussed the following topics in its earnings conference call. Gross Margins Guidance Kevin Maczka – BB&T Capital Markets: I guess my first question is on margins. You mentioned the quarterly records of very strong in the quarter. But it looks like the guidance as we go into Q4 suggests a sequential decline of maybe 100 basis points or more and it’s possible also by your guidance that revenues could be higher. So, can you just talk about that especially in the context of the favorable Gas Turbine mix? James F. Shaw – VP and CFO: Yeah, Kevin, this is Jim. In terms of the guidance, as we look forward, we are anticipating similar gross margins to what saw in this quarter. Revenues are up slightly, but from a practical standpoint, about the same. We did benefit a little bit this quarter from some adjustments to compensation type reserve as we look forward in terms of what the year is going to finish and that’s the way they are supposed to work. And we had a couple of other smaller one-times. So, we do anticipate in the guidance a little bit higher operating expense and part of that’s timing of some of our investments that Bill talked about whether it would be the strategic systems project and other investments. So, there is a little bit more OpEx forecast in Q4 versus Q3, but still it would project out to be a very significant finish on an operating margin. 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! Richard Sheffer – IR: Yeah, Kevin, this is Rich. I think as you look at your model, we are expecting the fourth quarter operating margin currently to be pretty close to last year’s level which was 15.1%. Kevin Maczka – BB&T Capital Markets: Are there further restructuring gains to be had here as we look out into Q4, because again, it seems like the mix maybe slightly positive. I understand what you are saying about some of the OpEx comp adjustments and things like that. But are there also – there’s always continuous improvement, but are there also further restructuring benefits coming? William M. Cook – Chairman, President and CEO: Kevin, this is Bill. We don’t comment prospectively specifically on restructuring, but we’re always looking at opportunities as the businesses continue to shift, and we’re always focused on Continuous Improvement as you mentioned. So we’re not forecasting significant restructuring in the fourth quarter, but we continue to look at it as we have over the last couple of years for opportunities. Kevin Maczka – BB&T Capital Markets: And Bill, can you just clarify your comment on the Gas Turbine; it looks like some of the industry orders from some of your big customer have slowed there? And you made the comment about a $180 million, was that an outlook for your fiscal ’14 or the next four quarters? 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! William M. Cook – Chairman, President and CEO: Kevin, Bill. Yes, it’s roughly for fiscal ’14. It’s probably sort of rough – roughly both – the next four quarters and fiscal ’14 around that $180 million run rate. And again, that’s still a pretty good year for us in terms of Gas Turbine, but we just don’t have a reoccurrence of – we had a large number of these large unusual projects in fiscal ’13 which we’re very grateful for but we don’t see any of those in fiscal ’14. We see that there might be some out beyond that but none of them shipping in fiscal ’14. Kevin Maczka – BB&T Capital Markets: And I think just finally on that point, you had thought at one point, we were fairly early in a multiyear up-cycle in Gas Turbine. Has that overriding view changed at all and t

Taco Bell (NYSE:YUM) is upping the breakfast ante by testing a new menu item as ridiculous as the Doritos Locos Taco: the Waffle Taco. The Waffle Taco is exactly what it sounds — a waffle folded like a taco and filled with scrambled eggs and sausage. The fast-food breakfast industry is heating up like a skillet and Taco Bell is gearing up to try to seize market share from more established breakfast restaurants. Taco Bell is a subsidiary of fast-food giant Yum! Brands, Inc. (NYSE:YUM), which also owns Pizza Hut and KFC. Business Week reports that the Waffle Taco is undergoing consumer testing at several Taco Bell locations in Southern California and has to perform well before it can be introduced to menus across the U.S. The Waffle Taco’s 89 cent price does not hurt; neither does the Taco Waffle’s menu support from the other breakfast items Taco Bell added to the menus of 750 stores in January 2012. Breakfast is a huge, profitable market for restaurants and Yum! Brands is not going to let something as simple as the fact that Taco Bell’s menu is filled with various tacos stop it from capturing a slice of the pie. If Yum! Brands can figure out a successful breakfast strategy, it is not a stretch to see Pizza Hut serving and possibly even delivering breakfast in the future. 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! Burger King (NYSE:BKW), Wendy’s (NYSE:WEN) and McDonald’s Corp (NYSE:MCD) have all made or plan to make adjustments to their breakfast business models. Burger King changed its coffee to Seattle’s Best (NASDAQ:SBUX). Wendy’s is backing more of its restaurants out of the breakfast market by reducing their hours to lunch and dinner. Finally, McDonald’s is talking about finally serving breakfast all day – a move that shows it feels confident enough in its breakfast to gamble customers will welcome it during dinner or lunch hours. Yum! Brand’s stock price grew steadily from January 2009 until April 2012. In fact, Yum! Brands stock more than doubled between January 2012 and May 2013 (it is currently trading at around $70). The past 12 months have seen the company’s stock price see-sawing between around $65 and $70. Success making Taco Bell a strong competitor in the fast-food breakfast market — when commuters clog the streets going to work or school — could help push Yum! Brand’s stock price higher than its “FourthMeal” late night customers. 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! Image Courtesy of Yahoo! Finance Don’t Miss: Is McDonald’s Planning to Streamline Its Menu? Read the original article from Wall St. Cheat Sheet

United Airlines (NYSE:UAL): Closing price $34.75 On Friday, United introduced the MileagePlus Small Business Network, representing the first domestic travel loyalty program that permits businesses to earn and redeem miles. Participating firms earn award miles by buying products from over a dozen of the program’s vendor partners, among which include top suppliers of printing, credit card payment processing, shipping, office supplies, and computing services. United also debut a bonus offer in which companies can get 1,000 bonus miles for enrolling in the MileagePlus Small Business Network, and conducting transactions that earn a minimum of 100 miles. Are these stocks a buy or sell? Let us help you decide. Check out our Stock Picker Newsletter now. General Motors Company (NYSE:GM): Closing price $33.42 According to the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine of China, General Motors Co.’s main Chinese joint venture is recalling Cadillac SUVs in order to correct a problem with the nuts that hold their wheels in place. Shanghai GM will recall 2,653 imported Cadillac SRXs, said the agency, which explained that torque might cause nuts on the wheels to loosen.  In the recall, the nuts will be adjusted and tightened. However, it was unclear if the problem was limited only to the models in China. Are these stocks a buy or sell? Let us help you decide. Check out our Stock Picker Newsletter now. Anheuser-Busch InBev (NYSE:BUD): Closing price $96.37 The brewing behemoth is purchasing C&G Distributing Co., a distributor in Lima, Ohio. The sale should close within the next 90 days, prior to a new state law becoming effective that bars brewers from owning distributors. Financials of the acquisition were not reported. C&G has been owned by the Cecala and Guagenti families for over 60 years and has sold A-B products in a 9-county area in west-central Ohio since 1967. Are these stocks a buy or sell? Let us help you decide. Check out our Stock Picker Newsletter now. Ford Motor Company (NYSE:F): Closing price $15.08 Ford intends to free up much-needed output capacity in North America by transferring the manufacturing of its Fiesta subcompact auto to Thailand in 2016, said sources familiar with the firm’s plans, who also said that the iconic automaker will move Fiesta manufacturing from its Cuautitlán Assembly Plant in Mexico, along with its Chennai Assembly Plant in India, to a centralized facility in Thailand. A Ford factory in Rayong, Thailand, is presently a manufacturing site for the Fiesta but the model is also is being made at seven other plants worldwide. Ford spokeswoman Kristina Adamski said in an email, “We can’t divulge our future product plans, but we’re always looking for ways to optimize our global manufacturing capability,” Are these stocks a buy or sell? Let us help you decide. Check out our Stock Picker Newsletter now. Don’t Miss: Is McDonald’s Planning to Streamline Its Menu? Read the original article from Wall St. Cheat Sheet

Newly leaked photos of internal iPhone 5S components suggest that the next iteration of Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) flagship smartphone will feature more than just incremental changes. BGR obtained several exclusive photos of what are purported to be various iPhone 5S internal components. Although the new iPhone 5S is expected to superficially resemble the last iteration of iPhone, it appears that the similarities end with the external casing. Previously leaked sets of photos have already suggested camera and flash component alterations as well as the possible addition of a fingerprint sensor. 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! However, these latest photos suggest an overall reworking of most of the iPhone’s internal layout. The new high-quality photos show multiple changes in the vibrating motor assembly, the loudspeaker bracket, the ear speaker bracket, the Wi-Fi flex cable ribbon, and the SIM card tray. Perhaps most importantly, these reconfigured parts seem to indicate that Apple is making room for new components that aren’t in the current iPhone. These components may include the rumored fingerprint sensor or this internal reconfiguration could be for components that no has seen yet. Like many of the new components, the new SIM card trays appear to have a thinner profile than the previous iPhone models. Interestingly, the photos reveal that the SIM trays have been manufactured in multiple colors, which suggests that the new iPhone will also be available in different colors. Some Apple fans have been calling for the Cupertino-based company to release multiple color options for the iPhone for some time now.  Ken Segall, the former Apple branding consultant who created one of Apple’s most iconic ad campaigns, is one famous proponent of multiple color options for the iPhone. Besides implementing these hardware reconfigurations, Apple is also reworking its mobile operating system for the iPhone 5S.  Apple’s iOS 7 is expected to be unveiled at the Worldwide Developers Conference in June. Jonathan Ive, who is now in charge of Apple’s human interface design, is reportedly leading a major redesign effort that will give iOS 7 a minimalist appearance that will more closely mesh with Apple’s minimalist hardware design. 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 so far this week. Follow Nathanael on Twitter (@ArnoldEtan_WSCS) Don’t Miss: Hey, Hedge Fund Managers Still Love Apple! Read the original article from Wall St. Cheat Sheet

When people are hurting for money, they shop where the prices are lowest and, for many Americans, that place is Walmart (NYSE:WMT). What happens when economic conditions improve? Do Americans shrug off slightly higher prices and seek fresher food of higher quality? Unfortunately for Walmart, this trend might already be happening. After reporting a 1.4 percent decline in sales in the first quarter of this year, investors are looking for reasons why Walmart is moving in the opposite direction of the rest of the economy. According to company leadership, the sales drop can be attributed to divine forces (bad weather) and Uncle Sam (the payroll tax hike and delays in tax refunds). Yet that didn’t stop Americans from eating out in unprecedented numbers. And it didn’t stop them from shopping at places considered more upscale, like Whole Foods (NASDAQ:WFM). 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! Judging by these indicators, it looks like an improving economy is actually a bad thing for Walmart. An area where the company sees positive signs is in the online business. Though Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) is still running the show in e-commerce, Walmart showed a massive 30 percent increase in sales online. Still, few analysts believe the Internet increase can compensate for the impending drop-off in actual stores. Amazon is not going anywhere, reflected in its own 22 percent increase in sales, which came from a far larger pool of consumers. With its warehouses in place to improve shipping flow, Amazon is ready to go to war online. Whole Foods presents a more direct threat in the brick-and-mortar business of Walmart. Its continuous growth in sales (and stock prices) reflect Whole Foods’ ability to play to the organic market as well as a general grocery clientele. In fact, Whole Foods senses vulnerability in the country’s largest retailer and is going after Walmart’s traditional sales base. Showing a clear path from a local farm to a nearby Whole Foods store, a recent ad is telling customers in the Midwest it can trust the food is fresher, while the business practices are unlikely to lead to thousands of deaths in a foreign factory. 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! Not that every Walmart customer cares about such things. CFO Charles Holley told reporters “we really haven’t had much feedback from that,” when asked about the recent disaster in Bangladesh. However, the writing on the wall is saying that customers who have a little bit of money in their pocket prefer shopping elsewhere. Investing Insights: Will Macy’s Continue to Make New All-Time Highs? Read the original article from Wall St. Cheat Sheet

With shares of Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ) trading around $21.27, is HPQ an OUTPERFORM, WAIT AND SEE or STAY AWAY? Let’s analyze the stock with the relevant sections of our CHEAT SHEET investing framework: T = Trends for a Stock’s Movement Hewlett-Packard is a provider of products, technologies, software, solutions and services to individual consumers, small- and medium-sized businesses and large enterprises, including customers in the Government, health and education sectors. Its operations are organized into seven segments: the Personal Systems Group, Services, the Imaging and Printing Group, Enterprise Servers, Storage and Networking, HP Software, HP Financial Services and Corporate Investments. Hewlett-Packard’s offerings include personal computing and other access devices; multi-vendor customer services, including infrastructure technology and business process outsourcing, application development and support services, and imaging and printing-related products and services. As a leading provider of diverse software and technologies, Hewlett-Packard will see rising profits from growing companies and economies worldwide. Technology advances at explosive rates and Hewlett-Packard stands ready to provide the products and services many consumers and companies around the world require to fuel expansion. 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! T = Technicals on the Stock Chart are Mixed Hewlett-Packard stock is now attempting to recover from increased selling pressure over the last several years. The stock has put together a reasonable bounce but may need a catalyst to propel the stock higher. Analyzing the price trend and its strength can be done using key simple moving averages. What are the key moving averages? The 50-day (pink), 100-day (blue), and 200-day (yellow) simple moving averages. As seen in the daily price chart below, Hewlett-Packard is trading around its key averages which signal neutral to bullish price action in the near-term. (Source: Thinkorswim) Taking a look at the implied volatility (red) and implied volatility skew levels of Hewlett-Packard options may help determine if investors are bullish, neutral, or bearish. Implied Volatility (IV) 30-Day IV Percentile 90-Day IV Percentile Hewlett-Packard Options 45.17% 90% 89% What does this mean? This means that investors or traders are buying a very significant amount of call and put options contracts, as compared to the last 30 and 90 trading days. Put IV Skew Call IV Skew June Options Steep Average July Options Steep Average As of today, there is an average demand from call buyers or sellers and high demand by put buyers or low demand by put sellers, all neutral to bearish over the next two months. To summarize, investors are buying a very significant amount of call and put option contracts and are leaning neutral to bearish over the next two months. On the next page, let’s take a look at the earnings and revenue growth rates and the conclusion. E = Earnings Are Decreasing Quarter-Over-Quarter Rising stock prices are often strongly correlated with rising earnings and revenue growth rates. Also, the last four quarterly earnings announcement reactions help gauge investor sentiment on Hewlett-Packard’s stock. What do the last four quarterly earnings and revenue growth (Y-O-Y) figures for Hewlett-Packard look like and more importantly, how did the markets like these numbers? 2012 Q4 2012 Q3 2012 Q2 2012 Q1 Earnings Growth (Y-O-Y) -13.70% -3060% -582% -23.81% Revenue Growth (Y-O-Y) -5.59% -6.72% -4.87% -2.97% Earnings Reaction 12.28% -11.95% -8.12% 3.27% Hewlett-Packard has seen decreasing earnings and revenue figures over the last four quarters. From these figures, the markets have been a bit confused about Hewlett-Packard’s recent earnings announcements. NEW! Disc

According to data released this week by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. Consumer Price Index fell in April at an annual rate of -4.35 percent. It was the second consecutive monthly decrease and the fastest rate of decrease since late 2008, when the economy was in free fall. The April decrease was largely attributable to lower gasoline prices, as have been almost all of the gyrations in the index since the start of the year. The core CPI, which removes its food and energy components, shows much less month-to-month volatility. It rose at an annual rate of 0.6 percent in April, its slowest rate of increase since 2010. The following chart shows that both all-items and core inflation have trended gradually downward over the past two years. Many people are skeptical of the CPI data published by the BLS. For various reasons, they believe that the true cost of living is rising much faster than the CPI. Given that perceived inflation is generally higher than the CPI indicates, it will come as a surprise to learn that some professional economists think the CPI overstates the rate of inflation, and does so by an increasingly wide margin. 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! One piece of evidence pointing in that direction is a growing gap between the CPI, calculated by the BLS on the basis of monthly price surveys, and the price index for personal consumption expenditures (PCE index) that is derived from the national income accounts. There are theoretical reasons for thinking that inflation as measured by the CPI, which uses base-period quantity weights, is likely to average a bit higher than the PCE index. (I discussed some of those reasons in this recent post.) The surprising thing, however, is that the gap between the two indexes has been increasing lately, as shown in this figure reproduced from the Atlanta Fed’s Macroblog. (I have added the CPI for April to the original chart.) Economists Mike Bryan, Pat Higgins, Brent Meyer, and Nicholas Parker of the Atlanta Fed undertook some statistical analysis to see if the increasing gap between the two indexes is real, or just an artifact of the data. Their conclusion is that there really is a gap, although perhaps the underlying gap is not quite as wide as that shown in the above chart. As they suggest, the possibility that the CPI is overstating inflation can be viewed as a glass that is either half-full or one that is half-empty. Pessimists may take a very low rate of PCE inflation as a sign that the Fed is failing in its efforts to meet its price stability mandate, which it defines as a 2 percent inflation rate for the PCE. Personally, I prefer to take a more optimistic view. Right now the economy is making at least gradual progress back toward full employment, at a time when Europe and Japan are struggling with much worse problems and emerging market growth is slowing. It would be a shame to see that progress derailed by a burst of inflation that frightened policy makers into tightening while the recovery remains so fragile. None of the inflation indicators we are seeing right now suggest any such risk. Ed Dolan is Wall St. Cheat Sheet’s in-house economics professor. He is the author of an acclaimed series of textbooks Introduction to Economics and Ed Dolan’s Econ Blog. Don’t Miss Ed Dolan’s “Quantitative Easing: Your Ultimate Cheat Sheet to the Monetary Policy“. Read the original article from Wall St. Cheat Sheet

Fellow investors and traders, This May, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has found 15,000 and a new crop of stock buyers. The stock market continues to achieve all-time record highs. We keep hearing, ‘I have all this cash on the sidelines, do you have any good ideas where to put it now?” The current stock market’s rising tide is not lifting all boats, so in order to win we utilize our CHEAT SHEET investing framework to sift for the gems. We’ve done a ton of research and found a financial stock with all the characteristics to win in today’s market based on key value metrics. The best part is our feature stock pick for May is now available in our acclaimed 15-page Stock Investor Cheat Sheet (full of more stock ideas, a Special Report, and much more). Click here now to discover our pick before the next leg higher! Cheers to your success, Damien & Derek Hoffman Founders, Wall St. Cheat Sheet P.S. – Act now and we’ll send you our new 24-page Ultimate Cheat Sheet to Apple’s Stock free ($68 value)! Read the original article from Wall St. Cheat Sheet

If you’re an iPhone user that was hoping to hook up with a Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) friend through the Bang With Friends iPhone application this weekend — sorry, you’re out of luck. Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) pulled the racy app from its App Store earlier this week, less than two weeks after the app had debuted for Apple users according to CNET. 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! The Facebook-connected Bang With Friends application debuted in January and arrived on Android and iOS-powered mobile devices earlier this month. It allows users to anonymously select friends they are interested in through their Facebook accounts. If two friends select each other, they are each sent an e-mail relaying their mutual interest in each other. Although Bang With Friends has an admittedly risqué title, some users only utilize the app as a means for setting up dates, much like any other matchmaking service. The mobile version of the app includes an “Up for Hang” option that indicates the user is only interested in meeting up and not necessarily hooking up. Currently the service has approximately one million users although it is unclear how much the user base will be impacted by Apple’s recent App Store ban. Apple keeps a tight rein on the sorts of apps that it allows in the App Store, and this is not the first time it has removed apps that violate its app developer guidelines. Although many commentators assume that the app was removed due to its risqué title, Apple has yet to confirm the exact reason according to Colin Hodge, one of the app’s creators. “We’re working with Apple to figure out exactly why,” a Bang With Friends spokesperson told CNET. 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 so far this 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

Here is our latest update on the stock trading technique called 'Buying Dividends'. This is the process of buying stocks before the ex dividend date and selling the stock shortly after the ex date at about the same price, yet still being entitled to the dividend. This technique generally works only in bull markets. In flat or choppy markets, you have to be extremely careful, and may need to avoid the technique during those times. In order to be entitled to the dividend, you have to buy the stock before the ex-dividend date, and you can't sell the stock until after the ex date. The actual dividend may not be paid for another few weeks. WallStreetNewsNetwork.com has compiled a downloadable and sortable list of the stocks going ex dividend during the next week or two. The list contains many dividend paying companies, all with market caps over $500 million, and yields over 2%. Here are a few examples showing the stock symbol, the ex-dividend date, and the yield. Highwood Properties (HIW) 5/20/2013 4.2% Maxim Integrated Products (MXIM) 5/20/2013 3.1% Park National Corp (PRK) 5/20/2013 5.6% LTC Properties (LTC) 5/21/2013 3.9% American Financial Group Inc. (AFW) 5/22/2013 6.0% The additional ex-dividend stocks can be found at wsnn.com. (If you have been to the website before, and the latest link doesn't show up, you may have to empty your cache.) If you like dividend stocks, you should check out the high yield utility stocks and the Monthly Dividend Stocks at WallStreetNewsNetwork.com or WSNN.com. Dividend definitions: Declaration date: the day that the company declares that there is going to be an upcoming dividend. Ex-dividend date: the day on which if you buy the stock, you would not be entitled to that particular dividend; or the first day on which a shareholder can sell the shares and still be entitled to the dividend. Monthly Dividend Stock List Record date: the day when you must be on the company's books as a shareholder to receive the dividend. The ex-dividend date is normally set for stocks two business days before the record date. Payment date: the day on which the dividend payment is actually made, which can be as long at two months after the ex date. Book now available: Buying Dividends Revised and Updated Don't forget to reconfirm the ex-dividend date with the company before implementing this technique. Disclosure: Author did not own any of the above at the time the article was written. By Stockerblog.com