CNBC Stock Blog
- Friday, 10 Feb 2012 7:07 AM ETBy: Pete Najarian
Community Health Systems is attracting upside option buying ahead of an industry conference next week and earnings results later this month.
Although yesterday’s option activity wasn’t off the charts, it was clearly bullish and accelerated in the final hour of the session. About 2,500 March 21 calls traded in a strong buying pattern for $0.70 to $0.80, according to OptionMonster’s real-time tracking systems.
- Friday, 10 Feb 2012 6:27 AM ETBy:
Dan Freed
Bank of America just saw the heat turned up again in its multipronged, multibillion-dollar legal battle over problem mortgages, according to an analyst report.
Oliver Quillia for cnbc.comBank of America branch, New York City.The latest trouble for the banking giant is a decision by MBIA [MBI Loading... ()
] to “cross-appeal” a judge's ruling last month that was widely interpreted as being favorable to the bond insurer in its legal battle with Bank of America [BAC
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]. MBIA filed its cross-appeal in New York State Supreme Court on Monday. - Thursday, 9 Feb 2012 6:24 PM ET
The choice is clear: stocks are a better investment than bonds right now, according to chief investment officers Bill Stone, of PNC wealth management, and Mike Finnegan of Principal Funds Group.
"If you look at the 'equity risk premium' — the difference between the market's expected return on stocks and bonds — it's about 6 percent. That's pretty rich. It's a positive signal for people to start entering the equity market," said Finnegan.
It turns out, Warren Buffett made the same argument on Thursday. - Thursday, 9 Feb 2012 12:59 PM ETBy:
Jonathan Blum Attention tech start-ups: Here’s how to get thousands of dollars of business software — completely legally — for absolutely free.
Microsoft’s BizSpark, at least in theory, offers what cost-conscious new firms need: Software for up to three years, to qualified companies, for nothing.
Still, in a suggestion Microsoft’s [MSFT Loading... ()
] business branding issues have reached new lows, the BizSpark free software program hardly tops many start-ups’ to-do list.That’s too bad. » Read More
- Thursday, 9 Feb 2012 12:19 PM ETBy: Margo D. Beller
Barclays Capital Equity Research analyst Mark May told CNBC Thursday he is willing to cut Groupon some slack on its first quarterly loss, but he is troubled by the online daily deal site not fully disclosing customer and merchant data.
“We always prefer more disclosure than less,” said May, Barclays’ Internet analyst, about the lack of information on the number of Groupon [GRPN Loading... ()
] subscribers and its featured merchants. “We definitely heard pushback from large investors on that topic. That’s something to pay attention to,” he said. » Read More
- Thursday, 9 Feb 2012 10:11 AM ETBy:
Vittoria Pirone, Assistant Producer, CNBC China’s steelmakers will see a rebound this year thanks to weakening iron ore prices and potential policy easing in the property sector, Helen Lau, senior analyst metals and mining at UOB Kay Hian in Hong Kong, told CNBC on Wednesday.
“We think China’s steel sector still faces overcapacity issues and high debt-to-equity ratio, but we see signs of a turnaround in demand and earnings in 2012,” said Lau, whose top pick is Angang [347-HK Loading... ()
] (347 HK/BUY/HK$7.50) because of its exposure to flat steel products, which are mostly applied to consumer products such as home appliances [.DJUNG
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] and autos [.DJATO
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]. - Thursday, 9 Feb 2012 6:20 AM ETBy:
David Russell Silicon Motion Technology has been pulling back from a monster run, and the bulls are stepping in.
OptionMonster's real-time tracking systems detected the purchase of almost 5,000 February 20 calls against open interest of just 689 contracts. Most of them traded for $0.75 to $0.80.
These calls lock in the price investors must pay to buy shares, so they can generate major leverage if the stock moves in the right direction. But the options can also lose all their value if a rally doesn't occur before they expire at the end of next week.
- Wednesday, 8 Feb 2012 3:22 PM ETBy: Margo D. Beller
Tobacco stocks are smoking hot right now with investors, thanks to the safe dividends and strong cash flow, Wells Fargo analyst Bonnie Herzog told CNBC Wednesday.
“What we’re seeing in the U.S. is that although the volume continues to decline in terms of cigarette consumption, the industry’s been able to offset those declines with pricing power,” said Herzog. » Read More
- Wednesday, 8 Feb 2012 12:25 PM ET
The Street was disappointed by lower-than-expected revenues from Walt Disney’s earnings report on Wednesday, but investors should care more about the company’s multiple, said David Bank, media analyst for RBC Capital Markets.
“The question isn’t about earnings. The issue for this company is its multiple [how much investors are willing to pay]. Is this a best-of-breed media company or a best-of-breed brand company?” he said. “That's the difference between a 15 times multiple, kind of a mid-$40 stock, or a 17 to 18 times multiple. That's what execution is going to demonstrate over the 12 to 24 months."
» Read More
As Bank spoke, the stock [DIS Loading... ()] traded above $41 on the New York Stock Exchange. - Wednesday, 8 Feb 2012 12:05 PM ETBy: Margo D. Beller
Drug company stocks only do well in a “gloom and doom” market where they look good by comparison, Sanford Bernstein analyst Jack Scannell told CNBC Wednesday.
Getty ImagesThese stocks have underperformed, he said, and “if you are a macro bull you wouldn’t want to own them. If you’re a macro bear you would.”
In Scannell’s view, the late 1990s was an unusually productive time for research and development, with a large number of very valuable drugs discovered. But that has been declining, he said, and the patents will soon be expiring.
- Wednesday, 8 Feb 2012 10:57 AM ETBy:
Adam Feuerstein Biotech stocks are off to their best start in more than a decade, with the Nasdaq Biotechnology Index [NBI Loading... ()
] soaring 17 percent since the start of 2012, trouncing broader stock indices. Investors are riding a wave of unprecedented optimism following what seems like an avalanche of deals, early drug approvals and positive clinical news that has kicked off the year. Biotech bull markets are fun but they turn quickly into biotech bubbles when ebullient investors get cocky and start believing that these risky, volatile stocks only go up. It may seem like a distant memory but it was only last August when biotech stocks tanked and the sector was un-investable. Don't believe biotech stocks will ever fall again? Guess again, they will. They always do.
- Wednesday, 8 Feb 2012 6:59 AM ETBy: Catherine Boyle
There are three key periods of the current stock market rally, Graham Neilson, chief investment strategist, Cairn Capital, told CNBC Wednesday.
The rally since the start of the year has been driven by a return to risk assets, as markets absorbed the impact of monetary easing by the European Central Bank
![[cnbc explains]](http://media.cnbc.com/i/CNBC/Sections/News_And_Analysis/_News/_CNBC_EXPLAINS/_IMAGES/CNBC_explains_icon1.gif)
. Major indices including the S&P 500 [.SPX
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] and the FTSE 100 [.FTSE
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] have risen, but analysts are divided on whether the rally will continue, and how it will progress. “There are three phases to go through,” Neilson said.
He described the first as a “technical rally” from an oversold position.
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