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In preparation for sales of the new anti-obesity drug Belviq on June 7th, Arena (ARNA) scheduled six events in six weeks including two post-launch. The launch will usher in a $65 million milestone payment from Eisai (ESALY.PK), more than many movies make and 16-times more than Vivus' (VVUS) first quarter's revenue. This may justify red-carpet treatment since evidence suggests Arena will ultimately market an array of anti-obesity and anti-diabetic medicine. Last week, at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch 2013 Health Care Conference (BofA), Arena's CFO gave an energizing talk while addressing many of my lingering questions. I was left convinced that sales of Belviq will easily exceed $520 million in the first year, which is more than recent estimates."Bel-Phen" Could Elicit a CrazeAt both the conference call and at BofA, Arena noted a planned meeting with the FDA this quarter to design experiments to address

Hewlett Packard (HPQ) reported earnings after the close today, May 22nd. The report sent shares soaring as much as 13% higher in after hours trading. On the face of it, this appears to be a rally driven by the concept that earnings were not as bad as they could have been. Because, there certainly is not much related to this earnings report that says HPQ has turned a corner and has a clear path to reinvigorating its business. On the contrary, revenue for every single reportable segment was down on a YoY basis. While earnings can be massaged through share buybacks and cost cuts until this company can begin to show revenue growth again, the risk will continue to be to the downside. HPQ is currently trading at levels, if they hold into the open of trading Thursday, it will mark a 52 week high for this company. I

Intel's (INTC) Atom line of products is, in my view, set to dramatically revolutionize the way that Intel does business going forward. While many of the arguments/observations that I will make in this piece are equally applicable to the "Core" line of micro-processors, I am confident that the trend will be most evident in the new market segments that Intel targets with products based on its "Atom" core. Intel, after many years of being a hardcore, high performance CPU design company, is about to become the world's premier system-on-chip design firm. Some Background Intel primarily develops two lines of CPU cores. The first is the "big Core", development of which happens at two main locations: Haifa, Israel and Hillsboro, Oregon. The Oregon team is responsible for this year's "Haswell", and next year's "Broadwell", and the Israel team is responsible for "Sky Lake" and its 10nm "tick" successor (apparently it's

Google (GOOG) stepped further into the world of audio entertainment Wednesday when the company emailed millions of Android users with an announcement of the Google All Access music service. Consumers were offered 30 days of unlimited music access where they can listen to millions of tracks any time, customize stations, and build play-lists. After the 30 day free trial the service can be continued for just $7.99 per month. Details from the email are below: Introducing All Access, the new music service from Google Play that lets you listen to all the music you want - on your mobile device and the web. Try All Access for free for 30 days. After the trial, keep listening for just $7.99 per month when you start your trial by June 30, 2013. Play anything you like. From today's hits to classic tunes, you'll find millions of songs by your favorite

Deere & Company (DE) is well placed to benefit from structural demand growth for farm equipment supported by high farm income, growing global demand for agricultural commodities and the need for more efficient equipment. As a major farm equipment manufacturer, the company is well positioned. Furthermore the launch of new products and geographic expansion offer attractive opportunities for Deere's long-term growth prospects. A key risk could be a sharp drop in US farmer income and thus lower demand for equipment. Strong long-term growth potential Deere is trading at a P/E 2014E (Fiscal Year ending October 2014) of 9.8, below its 5-year average of 13.3. Continued demand for farm equipment led by the long-term need for better agriculture productivity and recovering construction activities should support Deere's future earnings. Thus, a BUY recommendation is maintained. Higher sales and stable margins help Q2 2013 earnings Deere's Q2 2013 EPS grew by 6% YOY

Microsoft (NYSE: MSFT) announced on May 21 the upcoming release of its new generation Xbox gaming console, the Xbox One. It will be packed with loads of breakthrough features that will probably raise the gaming entertainment standard to a higher level. The scheduled release date is not set yet, but it could be anytime later this year. While the Xbox One will surely rock the gaming console industry, will this be enough to trigger a rally of Microsoft shares?For the past weeks, Microsoft rallied and gained 7% month-to-date. Year-to-date growth is a whopping 27%. The announcement on the upcoming release of Xbox One may further boost the current rally, but whether the actual launch will trigger another rally or not, that remains to be seen.The gaming console is just a part of one major segment of Microsoft, which is the entertainment and devices division. This segment contributes

Prestige Brands Holdings, Inc. (PBH) May 22, 2013 10:30 am ET Executives Matthew M. Mannelly - Chief Executive Officer, President and Director Timothy J. Connors - Executive Vice President of Sales & Marketing Ronald M. Lombardi - Chief Financial Officer and Principal Accounting Officer Analysts Frank A. Camma - Sidoti & Company, LLC Joseph Altobello - Oppenheimer & Co. Inc., Research Division Olivia Tong - BofA Merrill Lynch, Research Division William M. Reuter - BofA Merrill Lynch, Research Division Presentation Matthew M. Mannelly Good morning. Welcome, and thank you very much for coming. We're very excited to talk to you today. This is the first for us, our first ever Investor Day. And we think we have some exciting things to talk about, and we appreciate you being here this morning. So we look forward to getting into it. We're going to -- we tried to keep the words on

Wednesday's market was a roller coaster. After being up more than 150 points on the Dow early in the day, the market reversed and ended significantly down across the board. This is the first time this type of reversal has hit the market since March 2009 as investors seemed to wake up and realize how dependent the market is on continued massive Federal Reserve largesse.I think it is too early to deploy major cash into the market as I think we have a significant pull back ahead. However, putting some cash into the market in small amounts on days like these makes some sense. Finding stocks that are performing better than the overall market appears to be a sound strategy. Here are two independent energy concerns that bucked the sell-off Wednesday on back of analysts' upgrades.Pioneer Natural Resources (PXD): $143 a share, is a large (~$20B market capitalization)

Like the stealth bomber which is almost invisible to radar, the coming recession is almost invisible to leading indicators. The yield curve which has been reliable for decades is useless right now. Other indicators are hopelessly out of calibration indicating stronger than actual growth. The Yield Curve For almost six decades the yield curve has given warning about 18 months before a recession would come. Every recession from 1955 to the present was preceded by an inversion where the 1 year T-Bill yield rises above the 10 year T-Bond yield. As the gap between the yields narrow the yield curve is referred to as flattening. When the short term rate goes above the long rate it is referred to as inverted. In the chart below the red line labeled yield curve shows the difference of the 10 year T-Bond yield less the 1 year T-Bill yield. The red axes are

Earlier today we looked at US sector weightings, and below we take a look at the percentage of total world stock market cap that the largest countries make up. As shown below, the US and Japan, which were the two largest stock markets at the start of the year, have added