November 06, 2009 -- 09:49 ET| Today's Short Stories |
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| 09:30 -- 10:00 (Updated throughout the hour) |
| Lululemon Athletica: 300 stores already priced in - Credit Suisse . Credit Suisse says that with the recent upward revision in Q3 comp/EPS guidance, it is clear that LULU has gained back momentum in its business, and they believe this will continue into Q4, especially with relatively easy comp and exchange rate comparisons. However, if you assume the co reaches its stated goal of ~300 stores in N. America and assume sales/store of $4 mln and operating margin of 20%, EPS would be ~$2.15 and EBITDA would be ~$315 mln. The stock currently trades at a P/E of 12.1x and EV/EBITDA of 5.6x based on these numbers, which suggests that investors are valuing the co's growth prospects as if all 300 stores existed today, while in fact this realization of growth will not likely occur for 5-10 yrs. This means even if the co said they could get to 300 stores next year, firm says that it's already priced in. Firm maintains their Neutral, although in the near-term, based on the comp tailwinds, they think LULU seems headed higher. |
| Atheros Communications: Upbeat analyst day post close yesterday - Broadpoint AmTech . Broadpoint AmTech notes ATHR hosted an analyst day with detailed discussions of key divisions and an upbeat tone on business. The co recorded record shipments for the month of Oct, in-line with internal expectations given a typically front-loaded qtr, and collected over $60 mln in cash in the month. The positive tone adds confidence to its up 10% q/q rev est, which is in-line with official guidance of rev up ~10%. The co's new tgts are a 46-48% gross margin (up 1%), 17-19% R&D (up 1%), 9-11% SG&A (down 1%) and 18-20% operating margins (up 1%). Over 20% of 2009 rev will be from outside of core WLAN markets. In ethernet, the co will hit 100 mln cumulative ethernet shipments in Q4 after having hit 50 mln in Jan. The co's recently announced AR6133 combo solution combines Bluetooth 3.0 and 11n WiFi for mobile devices. Firm believes smartphone WiFi momentum is solid with more new wins outside of its QCOM and IFX partnerships. |
| Jo-Ann Stores upgraded to Outperform at Wedbush Morgan; tgt raised to $37 . Wedbush Morgan upgrades JAS to Outperform from Neutral and raises their tgt to $37 from $30 based upon increased visibility for near and long-term earnings power driven by strong internal execution and favorable external factors. The firm notes that beyond strong sales, the company has also been able to achieve improved gross margins through more direct sourcing as well as better merchandise buying and markdown management. Additionally, SG&A has been managed well with ongoing opportunities to reduce labor and occupancy costs going forward and achieving good leverage on positive sales results. The firm believes that these favorable operating trends should continue at least into 2012 and result in strong earnings power and outperformance of its peers. |
| Visa upgraded to Buy at Argus; tgt $100 . Argus upgrades Visa's to Buy from Hold and sets target price at $100. The firm believes that if encouraging recent volume trends continue, Visa's should continue to post upside earnings surprises. Moreover, even if volumes stay subdued, the firm believes that the worst of the declines have passed, and note that Visa'a earnings growth story remained intact through the depths of the recession. The firm believes that this bodes well for Visa's growth in better times. |
| Aeropostale: MKM believes the sell-off is overdone . MKM notes concerns over ARO's sales slowdown are overblown. They think weaker-than-expected Oct sales resulted largely from the co cutting back aggressively on discounting, as well as modestly slower trends in the second half of the month, which impacted all teen retailers. They believe this weakness was temporary as higher planned promotions in Nov should help teen retailers move past this seasonally slow period, which was exacerbated by the current recession. They think this slowdown is temporary. |
| DivX upgraded to Buy at Maxim Group; tgt $8.50 . Maxim Group upgrades DIVX to Buy from Hold and sets target price at $8.50 to reflect limited downside risk, industry data points which suggest better-than-expected 4Q09-1Q10 results, CE manufacturers, particularly TV, becoming more interested in connectivity to stream Internet video and the improving visibility for DIVX's content distribution. |
| Force Protection: Collins Stewart previews the co's upcoming Q3 results . Collins Stewart notes that FRPT is scheduled to release its Q3 on Monday after the close. They expect results could disappoint consensus expectations of $0.12 EPS. They believe the disparity relates to their assumptions on margin and restructuring charges. If the stock is weak on the report they would be more aggressive buyers. In Q3 they expect gross margin to decline to 12.0% from Q2's 13.7% and the yr-ago period's 18.6% due to charges related to the restructuring of its operations to a lower-volume manufacturing facility in the wake of the M-ATV loss; a write-down of the M-ATV-related inventory the co accumulated over the past several quarters; and the onset of deliveries of third-party system suspension kits. They estimate an additional $70 mln of cash generation through 2010; and at a sustainable revenue base of $450 mln, $50 mln of free cash per year. Given the high operational tempo in Iraq and Afghanistan, they think this lower rev base is not in the near future. |
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| Market Internals Data |
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| Issues | NYSE | Nasdaq |
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| Advancing | 1,538 | 1,261 | | Declining | 1,446 | 1,440 | | Unchanged | 120 | 126 | | Total | 3,104 | 2,827 | | Ratio | | Adv. / Dec. | 1.06 | 0.88 |
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