Netflix (Nasdaq:NFLX) Beats Estimates But Lowers Outlook: Aftermarket -15%

Tomahawk, WI 7/24/12 (StreetBeat) -- Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX) beat analysts' EPS estimates by more than double but lowered their guidance. This was blood in the water for sellers driving share price down more than 15 percent in aftermarket trading. As I write, shares of Netflix were at $68.80 per share after closing the day up slightly at $80.39 per share.

For the second-quarter, Netflix reported earnings of $0.11 a share on revenue of $889.2 million. Estimates were for earnings of $0.05 a share on revenue of $888.9 million.

A year ago, the company earned $1.11 a share on revenue of $788.6 million.

Netflix projected a weak third-quarter forecast, with results in a range between a loss of ($0.10) a share to a profit of $0.14 a share. Estimates are for earnings of $0.11 a share.

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Thursday’s biggest gaining and declining stocks

Palm Beach, FL 7/5/12 (StreetBeat) – Shares of the following companies made notable moves Thursday in U.S. premarket trade:

Advancers

International Speedway ISCA +2.67% was up 5% after posting jumps in both revenue and profit for its second quarter

Netflix NFLX +11.19% rose 7%, building on gains made in Tuesday’s holiday-shortened session.

OraSure Technologies Inc. OSUR +11.57% rose 7%, extending recent gains that came after the Food and Drug Administration approved the company’s over-the-counter HIV testing kit.

Ross Stores ROST +6.97% gained almost 6% after the retailer posted June same-store sales that topped analyst estimates.

Victoria’s Secret parent Limited Brands Inc. LTD +7.07% gained 5% after it said same-store sales rose 7%, well ahead of the 2.4% increase Wall Street was expecting.

SXC Health Solutions Corp. SXCI +1.88% rose 6%. Credit Suisse reiterated its outperform rating on the health-care firm and said the next major catalyst for the company will be forecasts accompanying second-quarter results.

Decliners

Ambow Education Holding Ltd. AMBO -11.21% fell 9% after the company said late Wednesday it swung to an adjusted first-quarter loss of 14 cents a share, compared with adjusted profit of 4 cents a share in the year-ago period.

Buckle BKE -5.55% was off 5% after reporting drops in both same-store and total sales last month.

Cato Corp. CATO -9.81% was off 6% after it posted a 10% slump in June same-store sales.

Please contact www.thestreetbeat.com for interest in our latest investor relations platform the “CEO Interview Series” with its host Steve Kanaval. The package includes a one-on-one interview with a seasoned industry professional; published segment to our web site with embedded audio/video file; and a compressed file that can be easily e-mailed out to your current and/or potential investors. Please e-mail bflautt@gmail.com or call (662) 392-0740 for pricing and scheduling.

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Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX) Is Cheaper Than You Might Think

Northern, WI 7/5/12 (StreetBeat) – Investors forgive biotechs for the losses they incur during their drug development and testing phases. They look the other way when a fast-growing dot-com is posting losses as it builds out its platform. So why can't Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX) get a similar pass?

Citigroup analyst Mark Mahaney issued a bullish note on the video service earlier this week, arguing that the company trades for just 12 times its domestic business.

Not even bulls argue that Netflix is cheap on a valuation basis. Netflix is expected to post just a marginal profit this year, and it's trading for more than 30 times next year's projected profitability.

The rub, of course, is the streaming giant's costly overseas expansion. The $67 million contribution profit that Netflix generated in its domestic streaming business during the first three months of this year was more than offset by a $103 million shortfall internationally.

However, Mahaney's compelling earnings multiple in the pre-teens removes the sandbag of losses incurred internationally. He's only looking at the company's 23.4 million stateside streaming accounts -- and its even more lucrative 10.1 million disc-based customers -- to arrive at the earnings multiple of 12. In reiterating his bullish call and a juicy price target of $130, Mahaney prefers to see it as a cheap domestic operator with an international appendage being thrown in for free.

Addition by subtraction
Investors make this mistake often. Zipcar (Nasdaq: ZIP ) is also trading at more than 30 times next year's net-income forecast. Does that make the car-sharing service expensive? Well, let's take a closer at this year's freshman quarter. Zipcar generated $6.8 million in pre-tax operating profit during the seasonally sleepy first three months of this year, but the company reported a small loss for the period as deficits internationally and in its younger stateside markets ate into its healthy established markets.

Why are we punishing these companies for reaching higher? If they were to retreat to their flagship businesses -- in Netflix's case it would be domestic and in Zipcar's case it would be the four major metropolitan markets that make up more than half of its business -- both companies would be very profitable.

Mahaney's approach with Netflix, where he sees its cash-slurping international endeavors as a "free call option," makes sense.

Investors need to reward companies for going big and stop discounting the valuations to the point where the profitable operations are too cheap to ignore.

Yes, Netflix is cheap in a way that a simple eyeballing of a forward earnings multiple will never show you.

Please contact www.thestreetbeat.com for interest in our latest investor relations platform the “CEO Interview Series” with its host Steve Kanaval. The package includes a one-on-one interview with a seasoned industry professional; published segment to our web site with embedded audio/video file; and a compressed file that can be easily e-mailed out to your current and/or potential investors. Please e-mail bflautt@gmail.com or call (662) 392-0740 for pricing and scheduling.

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Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX) in talks for cable partnership

Austin, Tx 3/7/12 (StreetBeat) -- Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX) Chief Executive Reed Hastings has quietly met with some of the largest U.S. cable companies in recent weeks to discuss adding the online movie streaming service to their cable offerings, according to sources familiar with matter.

In what would ratchet up its competition with HBO, the talks could lead to Netflix becoming available as another on-demand option for cable subscribers through their set-top boxes, according to three people familiar with the talks. If a partnership came to fruition, a cable operator might offer Netflix as an additional option added onto a subscriber's cable bill, according to a fourth person.

Any partnership would be a major about-face for many in the traditional cable industry who had initially seen Netflix as a threat to their $100 billion-a-year business.

Hastings has strongly hinted at investor conferences in recent weeks about the possibility of Netflix one day being a cable channel rival to premium networks like Time Warner Inc's HBO.

"It's not in the short term, but it's in the natural direction for us in the long term," said Hastings, speaking at an investor conference last week. "Many (cable service providers) would like to have a competitor to HBO, and they would bid us off of HBO."

While most industry watchers considered Hastings' comments as little more than thoughts about the future, people familiar with the talks said he has already met with senior cable executives to discuss how such a partnership might work. At least one cable operator could experiment with offering Netflix by the end of the year, said one of the people.

A Netflix representative declined comment on any talks with cable operators.

While Netflix offers mainly old TV shows and movies through its Web streaming service, it had been seen as a threat by some cable operators and cable networks worried the $7.99 a month service would lead to customers dropping the much more expensive cable TV package, a fear that has become known in the industry as "cord cutting."

Time Warner Inc Chief Executive Jeff Bewkes famously dismissed the idea that Netflix was a serious threat by equating the service to the "Albanian Army." More recently, however, Bewkes and other media chiefs, including Viacom's Philippe Dauman, have been much more positive about Netflix, in part because the service has boosted their coffers by licensing older shows.

Comcast Corp, (Nasdaq: CMCSA) the largest U.S. cable operator, last month launched its own online video service for subscribers called Streampix that is supposed to be its answer to Netflix. Comcast executives say they will do everything they can to keep subscribers watching video through its own systems.

Netflix also faces more competition from incumbents including Verizon Communications' joint venture with Coinstar Inc's Redbox due later this year.

There are also significant plans still in the works at Google Inc, Apple Inc and Amazon.com Inc in the online video space.

Even if a deal is reached in the near-term, actually receiving Netflix through a cable provider could still take months to launch. Hastings would first need to rework his licensing deals with programmers since most existing contracts will not allow Netflix to deliver their shows on a cable box, according to a senior programming executive.

Offering Netflix through a cable package could help the streaming service avoid a separate potential clash with cable operators over rising costs for online video traffic over their Internet pipes. Cable operators are the dominant high speed Internet providers in the U.S. and have been trying to devise methods to manage their costs and traffic of online video.

Time Warner Cable is the first major cable company to stick its neck out with a trial in Texas to charge users for the amount of bandwidth they use. Online video is commonly acknowledged as the heaviest share of Internet traffic.

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Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX) Surges 22%: Q4 Beats, Q1 Rev View Beats

Palm Beach, FL 1/26/12 (StreetBeat) -- Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX) this afternoon reported Q4 revenue and profit per share ahead of analysts’ expectations, and forecast the current quarter’s revenue well ahead of expectations, as subscriber numbers began to steady themselves.

Revenue in the three months ended in December rose 47%, year over year, to $876 million, yielding EPS of 73 cents.

Analysts on average had been modeling $857.4 million and 54 cents a share.

The company ended the quarter with 21.67 million domestic streaming subscribers, it said, a gain of 220,000. International streaming subs rose by 380,000, for a total of 1.86 million. Total domestic subscribers, including DVD subscribers, rose by 610,000, ending at 24.4 million.

For the current quarter, the company sees revenue in a range of $842 million to $877 million, ahead of the $846 million average estimate, and a net loss per share of 16 cents to 49 cents, worse than the consensus 29-cent loss. The company projects it will have 22.8 million to 23.6 million total domestic subs this quarter, 2.5 million to 3.1 million International subs, and 9.4 million to 10 million domestic DVD subs.

Management remarked that it was encouraged by progress in winning back subscribers after losses last year:

We are encouraged by the strength in acquisition that we are seeing, coupled with continued improvements in retention among our domestic streaming members. For Q1 to date, our domestic net additions for streaming are tracking close to our net additions in Q1 2010 of 1.7 million net additions. Given this trend, we are comfortable with our ability to continue to expand our domestic streaming contribution margin.

Netflix shares are up $21, or 22%, at $116 in morning trade.

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LargeCap Stocks to Watch Today

Swan Lake, MS 11/29/2011 (StreetBeat) – Thomas H. Lee Partners is interested in buying the U.S. operations of Yahoo! , sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

THL is hoping to do a leveraged buyout of Yahoo!'s U.S. business, which could be worth $5 billion to $6 billion, and draw on its experience running other media assets such as Nielsen, Clear Channel and Univision to turn around the ailing company, the sources said.

THL's approach is different than other private-equity firms such as Silver Lake, KKR and TPG, which are expected to put in bids for a stake of up to 20% in the company, Reuters noted.

Tiffany , the jewelry retailer, is expected by analysts Tuesday to report earnings of 61 cents a share on revenue of $802.1 million.

Tiffany has twice increased 2011 guidance. It last said it expects 2011 earnings of $3.65 to $3.75 a share on a sales gain somewhere in the high teens.

Sterne Agee anticipates a 19.7% increase in fiscal year 2011 sales to $3.7 billion.

Sterne Agee, in a report, said it expects Tiffany to further update annual guidance when it reports earnings Tuesday.

Netflix's credit rating was lowered by Standard & Poor's on expectations the company will report a loss in 2012.

S&P cut its assessment of Netflix's credit to 'BB-' from 'BB' and kept its outlook at stable.

"Our expectation is that escalating content commitments will lower profitability over the intermediate term, international expansion will have a greater impact on overall profitability, and a return of domestic subscriber growth could occur slightly later than we initially expected," S&P credit analyst Andy Liu said in a statement.

A federal judge rejected a proposed $285 million settlement between Citigroup and the Securities and Exchange Commission over a $1 billion mortgage-bond deal and ordered a fresh trial.

In his order, Judge Jed Rakoff said the pact was "neither reasonable, nor fair, nor adequate, nor in the public interest."

He set a trial date for July 16, 2012.

Citigroup shares closed Monday at $25.05, up 6%.

Ralcorp , the maker of Raisin Bran cereal and other packaged foods, is expected to post fourth-quarter earnings. The report was originally scheduled for Nov. 8, but was delayed pending the completion of a goodwill impairment analysis of the company's Post cereals business.

Analysts expect Ralcorp to earn $1.39 a share in the fourth quarter on revenue of $1.22 billion.

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Netflix (Nasdaq:NFLX) Raises Liquidity Concerns

Swan Lake, MS 11/22/2011 (StreetBeat) – Netflix (Nasdaq:NFLX) announced on Monday several transactions and a troubling 2012 outlook, a sign of the company's deteriorating performance and impact on its liquidity.

The company raised $200 million through the registered sale of common stock to T. Rowe Price and $200 million through a private placement of convertible notes to Technology Crossover Ventures.

Netflix Chief Financial Officer David Wells said these transactions will strengthen the company's balance sheet. But Janney Capital Markets analyst Tony Wible said the moves revive liquidity concerns.

"We believe this dilution reinforces our concerns on Netflix's accounting treatments that we maintain overstate its cash flow..." Wible wrote in a note. "We continue to believe ... that the disparity in Netflix's accounting and the rising cost of content forces it to access capital and raise prices."

Netflix also disclosed that it expects to incur a consolidated net loss in 2012 due to flat revenue and an increase in international investment. The company previously only said that it expected to be unprofitable on a global basis for a few quarters starting in the first quarter of 2012. Wall Street had been expecting 2012 full-year earnings of $1.11 a share.

Wible noted that the issuance raises a fresh batch of questions.

"Investors need to ask why one of the largest subscription-based platforms in the world needs capital. The lack of profitability on almost 23 million global streaming subscribers suggests that this business may not be as lucrative as the bulls believe."

Netflix is raising capital after spending hundreds of millions of dollars repurchasing stock.

"This dynamic reinforces our view that Netflix has been buying stock to offset the dilution from its large issuance of equity to its management team, which has aggressively sold the stock with many options priced as low as $1.50 per share," Wible wrote. "The CEO continues to own no shares directly, although we are encouraged to see that he has stopped selling stock as of early October."

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TV: Not Dead Yet

Palm Beach, FL 11/11/11 (StreetBeat) --A few years ago, many people were predicting the end of television as we know it. The rise of video-on-demand, social games and other Web-based diversions all were supposed to kill TV. Who could possibly want to watch an antiquated, live network or cable show, the theory went, when one could Tweet, surf Facebook or watch something cached on Hulu or streamed on Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX) instead?

Fast-forward to today. The TV business certainly has undergone some seismic shifts due to new technologie. But the bottom line is, people are still watching the tube. Nielsen predicted that the number of U.S. homes with TV access would hit 115.9 million in the 2010-11 season, up 1 million from the year before and representing an all-time high. American teenagers, one of the most tech-savvy segments of the population, have seen their TV viewership actually increase six percent in the last five years, according to a Nielsen report. And major, live TV events continue to draw enormous audiences: 111 million viewers in the U.S. watched the Green Bay Packers beat the Pittsburgh Steelers in the 2011 Super Bowl, while 38.6 million tuned in to see last season’s American Idol winner crowned.

Why has live TV remained so powerful? Part of it, obviously, is community. People still like to be a part of major world events and discuss them while they’re fresh—not a week later, when everyone knows which handsome bachelor “The Bachelorette” picked, or who won the big game. But there’s a new twist to that today: Thanks to the rise of social media and the Internet, people can discuss live TV while it’s happening. It’s even given rise to a new term, “social TV.” A recent study by Ovum, a business/technology research firm in the U.K., found that almost 40% of TV viewers discuss particular TV shows via social media while they’re watching them. This is evidenced by the average one million tweets generated during each of the seven games of this year’s World Series and 4.5 million from this year’s Superbowl viewers. Some shows, like “The Voice”, a live singing contest, even show viewer tweets on air.

More broadly, 51% of consumers surveyed said they used the Internet to access news or information while watching TV—the “second screen” phenomenon. The upshot: Rather than being a replacement for TV, many Internet technologies are proving complimentary; the online environment is the new water cooler where people gossip with each other about TV shows and other topics. Indeed, the new stereotype of a couch potato is fast becoming someone splayed out on his or her couch, snacks in hand, pecking away periodically at a laptop or tablet to trade comments with friends.

Equally important, the nature of TV content has changed profoundly over the last several years to favor live viewing. Today, reality, talk and contest-type programs, a la “American Idol,” “The Biggest Loser” and “Dancing with the Stars,” dominate the airwaves. Old-fashioned comedies and dramas no longer sit at the top. (In the 2010-11 season, the top-rated, prime-time network shows were, in order, two “American Idol” episodes, “Dancing with the Stars”, “Sunday Night NFL Football” and, then, finally, “NCIS.”) And to fully participate in some of these programs, like Idol, one must watch them live. Otherwise, you can’t vote for the winner. And people like to vote—over 100 million votes were cast in this year’s Idol season finale. And even for traditional broadcast shows, social media presents the opportunity for “spoilers” from your network, so you better watch your show live to avoid missing out on the surprise ending in the season finale of your favorite drama.

That said, it doesn’t mean people are going to be watching all their TV on an actual TV set in the coming years. Cable and satellite companies are all working feverishly to catch up to new, Internet content-providers like Hulu, YouTube, Netflix, AppleTV, Roku and, of course, Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN). The traditional players, like Comcast (Nasdaq: CMCSA) and Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC), are testing new technologies to allow them to deliver shows and movies via Internet protocol, which means they can be beamed via broadband connections to multiple devices—PCs, smartphones, tablets, whatever. It’s a concept known in the industry as “TV Everywhere”, and it’s the natural evolution of online video. It’s also a natural evolution of IP: The Internet has gradually chewed through countless traditional industries, from data to voice to music, and TV is one of the last analog bastions.

There are some obstacles to the IP-video revolution, including securing rights for specific content and figuring out how to measure viewership when people are watching shows on multiple devices. But the cable and satellite providers have a big incentive to figure it out—namely, keeping their subscribers. Today’s on-the-go consumers, who expect to complete most computing tasks on a mobile phone or an iPad, are also demanding the kind of high-quality video they get on their living room TVs when they’re out of the house. And right now, the video experience on computers, smartphones and other mobile devices—especially for live content—can still be lacking. Current pay TV providers are in the best position to be a one-stop source for high-quality video, anywhere and everywhere. Many start-up companies, including ours, are working to provide them with cutting-edge technologies to make that happen—keeping TV alive (with a little help from Simon Cowell).

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LargeCap Stocks to Keep an Eye on Today

Shawshank, VA 10/11/2011 (PennyPayDay) – Car rental company Dollar Thrifty said it hasn't received any final acquisition proposals by an Oct. 10 deadline and will continue with its stand-alone plan.

Shares were tumbling 4.1% to $57.94 in premarket trading Tuesday.

Jones Group is in discussions about the possible sale of its jeans division to private-label apparel company Delta Galil Industries for $350 million to $400 million.

Shares were gaining 3.2% to $10.

Reinsurance company Transatlantic says it has begun private discussions with an additional party regarding potential strategic alternatives, on top of its previously-announced private discussions with Validus, National Indemnity and an additional undisclosed party.

Transatlantic shares were up 1.4% to $50.80.

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings made news on Monday by backpedaling on plans to separate the company's physical DVD and streaming content services less than a month after announcing the change.

Shares were down 0.8% to $110.70.

The big piece of scheduled corporate news on Tuesday is the quarterly report of Alcoa, always the first Dow component to open its books. The stock is down more than 40% so far in 2011, and Wall Street isn't expecting much given how far aluminum prices have fallen.

The average estimate of analysts polled by Thomson Reuters is for a profit of 22 cents a share for the September-ended quarter on revenue of $6.24 billion.

Shares were down 0.5% to $10.04.

Oil major Chevron is expected to issue its interim third-quarter report later Tuesday.

Shares were down 0.5% to $97.73.

American Airlines said adjustments to its late fall and winter schedule will result in a 3% decline to its mainline capacity in the fourth quarter.

Shares were unchanged at $2.53.

Electronic products company Sony told Reuters it wasn't planning any major announcement about restructuring its television business amid growing expectations the company would be unveiling big changes to the unit as it heads for its eighth year of losses.

Chief Financial Officer Masaru Kato said Sony was becoming cautious about sales in the crucial year-end shopping season in November and December.

Mistras Group, which does safety inspections for the energy industry, said its fiscal first-quarter net income almost doubled to 11 cents a share from 6 cents a year earlier, beating analysts' expectations for a 10-cent profit. Revenue rose to $91.4 million, topping estimates for $81.1 million. The company forecast its sales and earnings, excluding certain items, to grow at a double-digit rate in fiscal 2012.

Specialty retailer Sally Beauty said it has started a secondary common stock offering of 15 million shares.

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LargeCap Stocks to Keep an Eye on Today

Oxford, MS 9/26/2011 (PennyPayDay) – Investor Carl Icahn withdrew his slate of nominees for the board of cleaning products maker Clorox, essentially backing off his bid to engineer a sale of the company.

In a Form 13D filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Icahn said the decision was made "after concluding that a considerable base of shareholders would not support their stated campaign at this time."

Shares were slumping 5.5% to $65.60 in premarket trading Monday.

Online move rental company Netflix could unveil Monday a new streaming deal with DreamWorks Animation, the company behind the "Shrek" films, reports say.

Netflix shares were gaining 4.9% to $135.65.

Shares of UBS were rising 3.7% to $11.67 after the Swiss bank appointed Sergio Ermotti as interim CEO after a $2.3 billion rogue trading loss forced the resignation of Oswald Gruebel over the weekend.

Boeing announced Sunday it had made contractual delivery of its first 787 Dreamliner to All Nippon Airways of Japan.

Shares were rising 1.7% to $60.50.

Online retail giant Amazon will hold a press even in New York this week, and rumors are swirling that it will finally unveil its highly-anticipated tablet. Rumors have been circulating for several months that the e-commerce giant is readying itself to launch a tablet to rival Apple's iPad.

Shares were adding 1.6% to $227.26.

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Netflix Gets Dreamworks Deal Instead of HBO

Tomahawk, WI 9/26/2011 (PennyPayDay) – Netflix (Nasdaq:NFLX) Inc has won a deal to pipe Dreamworks Animation movies starting in 2013, the first time a major Hollywood studio has chosen Internet streaming over traditional pay TV, The New York Times reported on Sunday.

Dreamworks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg told the newspaper the deal, worth $30 million per picture to Dreamworks over a number of years, was "game-changing" and represented a bet that viewers would soon no longer make distinctions between content streamed on the Internet or through cable.

The Netflix deal means Dreamworks -- the studio behind family friendly fare from "Shrek" to "Kung Fu Panda" -- is eschewing premium pay-TV operator HBO in favor of online streaming, the Times reported. HBO is a unit of Time Warner Inc. "We are really starting to see a long-term road map of where the industry is headed," Katzenberg was cited as saying to the newspaper in an interview.

The content agreement comes days after Netflix, which has seen its share price decline sharply after a series of missteps, sealed an agreement to broadcast TV shows from Discovery Communications Inc.

Netflix needs to add more content to its streaming service to keep drawing in new customers and fend off competition from the likes of Amazon.com, Google Inc and Apple Inc.

Shares of the one-time Wall Street darling have fallen 50 percent in two months. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings has apologized for failing to explain moves adequately, from a surprise price hike in July to a separation of its DVD-mail from streaming services, and the company is trying to win customers back.

But adding customers is suddenly proving difficult, with Netflix on the receiving end of heated complaints from customers still upset over the price hike announced in July.

It cut its subscriber forecast by 1 million, saying it now expected to have 24 million subscribers at the end of the third quarter. The last time Netflix reported a subscriber decline was the second quarter of 2007, when Blockbuster was aggressively pushing a DVD rental package called Total Access.

According to the Times, Netflix was quick to pump up the Dreamworks deal.

"This is one of the few family entertainment brands that matter," Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos was quoted as saying. "It's also a signal to people that we are in no way moving away from movies. Our programing is just reflecting more and more what people want."

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LargeCap Stocks to Keep an Eye on Today

Tomahawk, WI 9/19/2011 (PennyPayDay) – United Technologies, the provider of technology products and services to the building systems and aerospace industries, reportedly is exploring a takeover bid for Goodrich, the maker of landing gear, wheels, brakes, engine control systems and other products for airplanes.

Goodrich shares were surging 19.5% to $111 in premarket trading Monday.

Tyco International said it would separate into three publicly traded companies -- security business ADT North America, flow control products and services, and a commercial fire and security business.

Shares were gaining 7.8% to $47.10.

Netflix said it would rebrand its DVD-by-mail service as "Qwikster," as it separates the business from its movie streaming business.

Shares were tumbling 2.4% to $151.45.

General Motors has reached agreement with the United Auto Workers union on a new four-year labor contract covering the Detroit carmaker's 48,500 U.S. workers.

Shares were down 1.9% to $22.19.

UBS has launched an internal probe into the disastrous failure of its risk systems after rogue equity trades cost the Swiss bank $2.3 billion, Reuters reported.

Shares were falling 1.7% to $11.68.

Homebuilder Lennar said fiscal third-quarter profit declined 31% as home deliveries fell 3%.

Lennar earned $20.7 million, or 11 cents a share, in the third quarter, down from year-earlier earnings of $30 million, or 16 cents. The EPS figure met analysts' expectations.

Shares were rising 1.5% to $14.

Agnico-Eagle Mines agreed to buy junior natural resource company Grayd for C$2.80 a share, or about C$275 million ($281 million).

Agnico shares were rising 0.8% to $69.

Utility company Westar Energy increased its full-year adjusted earnings outlook to a range of $1.88 to $2.03 a share, above expectations, from $1.65 to $1.80 a share.

Shares were up 0.3% to $26.32.

Micron Technology , the maker of semiconductor devices, has been raised to neutral from sell at Goldman Sachs.

Shares were inching up 0.1% to $7.04.

Boeing suspended plans to make its first delivery of the 747-8 freighter to Cargolux amid unresolved issues with the airline.

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Netflix Lowers Subscriber Expectations

Northern, WI 9/15/2011 (PennyPayDay) – Netflix (Nasdaq:NFLX) is lowering its U.S. subscriber expectations for the third quarter because of customer losses relating to a split of its DVD and streaming options.

The company, which separated its streaming and DVD-by-mail services two months ago, said Thursday it now expects 21.8 million subscribers for its streaming-only service and 14.2 million subscribers to get DVD plans. That's down from a late July estimate of 22 million streaming customers and 15 million DVD subscribers. It sees the most subscriber decline in DVD-only plans. That forecast went to 2.2 million from 3 million.

It backed its forecast for international subscribers and overall third-quarter earnings.

The Los Gatos, Calif., company said that despite the revision, it thinks the split was the right move.

Shares of Netflix slipped 16 percent in premarket trading.

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LargeCap Stocks to Keep an Eye on Today

Tomahawk, WI 9/15/2011 (PennyPayDay) – Transcept Pharmaceuticals announced a plan to resubmit the new drug application for its proposed insomnia drug Intermezzo by the end of the month.

Shares were surging 41.3% to $4.72 in premarket trading Thursday.

Online movie rental company Netflix on Thursday said it was lowering is third-quarter domestic subscriber estimates.

"We know our decision to split our services has upset many of our subscribers, which we don't take lightly, but we believe this split will help us make our services better for subscribers and shareholders for years to come," the company said in a statement.

Shares were plummeting 15% to $177.51.

UBS, the Swiss bank, said Thursday it discovered an estimated $2 billion of losses caused by a rogue trader.

Shares were tumbling 10.6% to $11.34.

Shares of Microsoft were inching up 0.9% to $26.73 as the software products company said 500,000 copies of the preview version of Windows 8 have been downloaded since its debut this week.

Shares Intel were up 0.8% to $21.28 as Bloomberg reported the chipmaker sold $5 billion of five-, 10- and 30-year bonds -- its first sale of non-convertible debt since 1987.

Shares of Hewlett-Packard were ticking up 0.6% to $23.08 as Bloomberg reported that HP options traders have been at their most bullish in two years amid optimism that the company's transition away from personal computers will prove to be successful.

BlackBerry maker Research In Motion is expected by analysts Thursday to report second-quarter earnings of 88 cents a share vs. last year's earnings of $1.46 a share. Shares were down 0.2% to $29.65.

General Motors and Chrysler agreed with the United Auto Workers to extend contracts after the parties failed to reach a new agreement by a midnight deadline.

GM shares were flat at $22.17.

Food and beverage giant PepsiCo announced a management shake-up at its biggest unit, the Americas beverage division. The unit has been losing its edge to arch rival Coca-Cola.

Shares were trading sideways at $61.63.

Filtration and industrial products maker Clarcor posted a profit of $32.1 million, or 63 cents a share, for the third quarter on revenue of $284.8 million, up from its year-ago equivalent earnings of $28.3 million, or 55 cents a share, on revenue of $262.8 million. The earnings were below the average estimate of analysts polled by Thomson Reuters for earnings of 66 cents a share in the period on revenue of $295.3 million.

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Netflix (Nasdaq:NFLX) Down -11% in Pre-Market Trading

Oxford, MS 9/2/2011 (PennyPayDay) – Netflix's negotiations to keep a key piece of its Internet video library have collapsed, dealing a major blow to the largest U.S. video subscription service as it raises the prices for most of its 25 million customers. The setback triggered a nearly 9 percent drop in Netflix Inc.'s stock price.

Starz Entertainment delivered the bad news Thursday in a terse statement announcing that it won't renew a contract that allows Netflix to show a lineup of recently released movies and TV shows over high-speed Internet connections.

That means Starz content will be removed from Netflix's streaming service starting in March. Starz' library includes movies from Walt Disney Co.'s assorted studios and, until recently, Sony Corp.

The talks fell apart after the two sides disagreed over the value of the Starz content and how it should be sold to Netflix subscribers, according to people familiar with the negotiations. The people asked not to be identified because they weren't authorized to speak publicly.

The content from Starz' cable TV channel played an instrumental role in increasing usage of Netflix's Internet service and helped Netflix add nearly 17 million subscribers since the deal was signed in October 2008.

That growth probably wouldn't have happened without the boost that the Starz deal gave to Netflix streaming, said Janney Montgomery Scott analyst Tony Wible.

"What created (Netflix's success in streaming) is frankly, initially getting Starz, getting that content, which got you more subscribers, which allowed you to buy more content," Wible said. "The virtuous cycle that has made Netflix what it is could work against it. If you lose content, you lose subscribers; ... it could be a downward spiral from here."

Netflix had been expected to work out a new contract with Starz, although at a much higher price than the estimated $30 million a year that it had been paying under the current agreement. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings acknowledged earlier this year that the company might have to pay as much as $250 million a year to retain the Starz rights when the current contract expires in February.

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Why Use Blockbuster

Oxford, MS 4/8/2011 (Penny PayDay) -- Growing up, everybody was familiar with family movie night. For me it was piling in the car, having to strap siblings into car seats, driving fifteen miles just to go inside the Blockbuster in town to find that the new releases had already been checked out. With the world we live in today, just about everyone I know has a gaming system with Netflix or has a local Redbox. These systems are easy to use and are over all cheaper to use.

According to an article I read on Yahoo Finance, Blockbuster has been foreseen to be a company that will not make it too 2012. If you look up the stock price for this company I’m positive you will agree. As of right now the last close was $0.06 and the one year estimate is $0.15. The 52-week range is $0.04-$0.60.

Netflix has a day range of $231.03-$236.47.It also has a 52-week range of $79.20-$248.88. With this comparison it is easy for anyone to see that Blockbuster is indeed losing the battle of movie rentals, in my humble opinion.

Redbox allows users to use a credit card to rent movies for $1 each for a night. For college students, this is the best answer. Not to mention that with the rise in gaming systems you can now watch movies online through your TV. With all of the new developments in technology, why use blockbuster?

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Cable Providers Teaking Custmer Base during Bowl Games

Millions of people around the country could find themselves in a similar spot this weekend. As a midnight Friday deadline approaches, Sinclair Broadcast Group still doesn't have a deal with cable TV operators Time Warner Cable Inc. and Bright House Networks.

However, Time Warner Cable said late Thursday that it will continue to provide all available Big 4 network programming this weekend even if Hunt Valley, Md.-based Sinclair pulls local programming, such as the evening news.

Such a plan could mean that college football fans may be able to watch Saturday's ABC broadcast of the Gators playing in the Outback bowl after all.

Without an agreement, Sinclair plans to pull its signals from those two systems. Chapel is a Bright House customer, and Sinclair owns the ABC station in Pensacola, which is carrying the Outback Bowl. Sinclair owns 32 other stations in areas of the country where Time Warner or Bright House has customers.

A last minute deal could still head off any game day disappointments.

But Joe Smith, who operates Sinclair's ABC station in Pensacola, said the outlook for Florida Gators fans in the area wasn't good. "It is quite possible we will be off out there on game day," he said.

Bright House did not return several phone messages left by The Associated Press. Time Warner has said it remained ready to negotiate.

Consumers would still be able to get the stations with an antenna if they have a digital TV or converter box, but most Americans these days get broadcast channels through subscription services such as cable TV or satellite.

Disputes such as these are cropping up more frequently as the broadcast TV industry looks for a sturdier business model. Broadcast companies used to allow cable providers to carry their channels for free and made their money selling commercial time. But they face growing competition from cable channels. And the recession drove home how quickly cash-strapped businesses will rein in ad spending.

A few months ago, in a similar dispute, Cablevision Systems Corp. customers went without Fox programming for 15 days -- missing two World Series games.

As cable providers resist higher program fees demanded by broadcasters, TV viewers are getting caught in the middle.

Montey Chapel and his sons aren't sure what they will do if they can't watch the Outback Bowl at home. "That's the biggest game of the entire day," said Chris Chapel, a Florida graduate.

Bright House subscriber Billy Dortch -- an Alabama fan, himself -- may have bad news for his fiance, who roots for Florida.

"I don't know how I will break it to her if we don't get the Florida game," he said, unloading groceries in the parking lot of Cantonment store.

Shane Wiley, dressed in a Florida Gators' sweat shirt, pulled into a parking spot nearby. Wiley said he has been a Florida fan for the last 15 years and wasn't going to let the cable dispute cause him to miss the game. He has already looked into switching from Bright House to a satellite service. If he can't do that in time, he will go to a friend's house, he said.

Jennifer Stokes' SUV is adorned with a Florida Gator on the front license plate. The Bright House subscriber said there is no way she and her large group of family and friends will miss the Outback Bowl.

"We will just go somewhere else and watch it. It's a big deal," she said.

It wasn't known how many Time Warner and Bright House subscribers are in markets served by Sinclair. Potentially affected are 33 Sinclair stations in 21 markets -- among them Fox, NBC, CBS and ABC affiliates.

However, Fox owner News Corp. has agreed to provide Time Warner with network programming in case a local station operator withholds its signal. That means Time Warner customers would still get shows such as "Glee," "House" and "The Simpsons," even if they couldn't watch the local Fox newscast.

Besides Pensacola, the potentially affected ABC stations are in Charleston, W.Va., Greensboro, N.C. and Dayton and Columbus, Ohio.

Rick Kolloff, who helps organize Penn State alumni gatherings to watch football games in the Columbus area, said he's received no questions or complaints from fans about the cable dispute. His Penn State Alumni Association chapter plans to watch the Outback Bowl at a pub that uses a satellite TV service.

"I guess I'll be interested to see whether folks that are anxious to see that game will leave their house when they normally might not have and come out and join us," he said.

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Paul Allen Loses Round One

In August, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen mounted a surprise offensive against an all-star cast of defendants. The industrialist and philanthropist filed suit against tech giants Apple, Google, AOL, eBay, Facebook, Netflix, YouTube, and many more for patent infringement. But today his hopes of adding some much-needed cash to his estimated $12.7 billion bank account were dashed after a judged dismissed his wide-ranging lawsuit.

Filed in U.S. District Court by Interval Research, a Palo Alto-R&D lab Allen founded in the late 1990s, the suit sought damages over several patent violations but was dismissed for lack of specifics. The suit referenced four violated patents that covered e-commerce and search engine technology.

Judge Marsha Pechman said in her ruling that Interval "failed to identify the infringing products or devices with any specificity." Not that it would be difficult to identify products or devices--but it certainly would be time consuming.

Although they may have seemed novel at the time, the patents are incredibly vague and all-encompassing. For example, one patent refers to the technology that allows a website to "offer suggestions to consumers for items related to what they're currently viewing." Where to begin? Amazon, Zappos, Gilt Groupe, Walmart, Target--the list is endless.

But that doesn't mean Allen's suit is finished. The court is giving Interval until December 28 to file an amended complaint, and a spokesman for Allen said the judge's ruling was a "procedural issue" and that the "case is staying on track."

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Stocks to Watch Today

Home Depot, the No. 1 home-improvement retailer, said Wednesday it expects fiscal-year sales to rise 2.3% with earnings from continuing operations up 27% to $1.97 a share.Shares of the company were a tad lower at $33.46, down 0.3% in premarket trading.

Costco said fiscal first-quarter earnings rose 17% as sales at its warehouse stores jumped 11%. Shares of Costco were 0.2% lower to $69.49 in premarket trading Wednesday.

Texas Instruments tightened its fiscal fourth-quarter outlook after Tuesday's closing bell saying it now sees earnings of 61 cent sto 65 cents a share on revenue ranging from $3.43 billion to $3.57 billion. Texas Instruments shares fell 0.8% to $33.15 in premarket trading.

Fortune Brands on Wednesday confirmed reports it will break itself into three separate companies. The company, whose products include Maker's Mark bourbon whisky and Titleist golf products, said it will spin off its home and security division to shareholders, try to sell or spin off its golf products business, and continue as a public liquor company. Shares were rising in the premarket by $3.35, or 5.48%, to $64.50.

The U.S. Treasury has reached terms on the sale of the remainder of its stake in Citigroup, pricing the final 2.4 billion common shares at $4.35 each. Citigroup shares were down 0.2% to $4.61.

Men's Wearhouse, the Houston-based men's apparel retailer, forecast a much wider than expected loss for the current quarter, citing increased costs from bonus payments and medical expenses. There were no premarket quotes for Men's Wearhouse. The stock settled 0.4% higher at $28.74 Tuesday, but tumbled 8.7% to $26.24 in after-hours trading.

Netflix said Chief Financial Officer Brian McCarthy is leaving. McCarthy's departure is effective Friday, making for a rather abrupt transition for replacement David Wells, who most recently served as vice president of financial planning and analysis. Shares of the company were down 3.7% to $182.80 in premarket trading.

Orexigen Therapeutics' Contrave, the weight loss drug, has been recommended for approval by a Food and Drug Administration panel. Shares of Orexigen surged 139.7% to $11.41. Other companies also working on diet drugs include Vivus and Arena Pharmaceuticals. The stocks rose 15.4% to $9 and 11.4% to $1.57, respectively.

H&R Block posted weaker-than-expected quarterly financial results after the closing bell Tuesday. There were no premarket quotes for the stock. It settled 4.1% higher at $13.55 on Tuesday.

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Taxing Internet Usage: Comcast Holds The Cards

In 2008, the F.C.C. issued a finding that Comcast had violated federal Internet policy when it secretly blocked or slowed down the transmission by its customers of information via BitTorrent, a so-called peer-to-peer service that allows users to share large files. Comcast challenged the F.C.C.’s order, claiming that the commission lacked the authority to regulate how it managed its Internet service because doing so was not ancillary to any legal authority given to the commission by Congress.

In April, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled in Comcast’s favor, saying that the F.C.C. lacked the authority to enforce nondiscrimination principles over an information service. Since that ruling, the commission’s authority to regulate broadband service has been uncertain and hotly debated.

In a speech he plans to give Wednesday in Washington, Julius Genachowski, the F.C.C. chairman, will outline a framework for broadband Internet service that forbids both wired and wireless Internet service providers from blocking lawful content. But the proposal would allow broadband providers to charge consumers different rates for different levels of service, according to a text of the speech provided to The New York Times.

Mr. Genachowski has decided not to use the commission’s telephone regulatory powers to govern broadband Internet service, a move that he proposed in May that would potentially open Internet service to heavier government regulation.
His proposal would also allow broadband providers to manage their networks to limit congestion or harmful traffic.
The framework will form the basis for a proposed order scheduled to be voted on during the F.C.C.’s Dec. 21 meeting.

Mr. Genachowski says he believes he has the legal authority to act because he argues that his plan would help spread broadband service more widely across the country, a priority that Congress has established as one of the F.C.C.’s mandates. It is not clear whether the latest proposal will garner the support of the majority of the five-person commission.
While he has a fair chance of securing the votes of the two other Democrats, he faces a potential fight with one of those commissioners, Michael J. Copps, who has been public in his support for stricter regulation of broadband Internet service.
Mr. Genachowski will also face significant opposition from Republicans in the House of Representatives, who last month warned against attempts to regulate broadband service and the Internet. The chairman intends to say that he believes the proposal is necessary to guarantee that the Internet continues to provide an incubator for innovation by start-up companies. “Broadband providers have natural business incentives to leverage their position as gatekeepers to the Internet,” the text of the speech says. “The record in the proceeding we’ve run over the past year, as well as history, shows that there are real risks to the Internet’s continued freedom and openness.”

The proposal will allow broadband companies to impose usage-based pricing, charging customers higher prices if they make heavy use of data-rich applications like streaming movies. Users who use the Internet only to check e-mail, for example, could be charged lower prices for using less data.

The F.C.C. also will allow companies to experiment with the offering of so-called specialized services, providing separate highways outside the public Internet for specific uses like medical services or home security.
But companies will be required to justify why those services will not be provided over the open Internet and to demonstrate that their implementation does not detract from a company’s investment in the more widely used open Internet infrastructure.
As for broadband service delivered over wires, providers to homes or offices will be prohibited from blocking lawful content, applications, services and the connection of nonharmful devices to the network. The companies also will be subject to transparency requirements as to how their networks are managed