Nvidia (Nasdaq: NVDA) Up 7% on FYQ1 Beat; ‘Got Any 28-Nano Wafers?’

Shawshank, VA 5/11/12 (StreetBeat) -- Shares of chip maker Nvidia (Nasdaq: NVDA) are up $1.23 cents, or almost 10%, at $13.65 in early trading after the company this morning reported fiscal Q1 revenue and profit per share that topped analysts’ expectations and forecast the current quarter higher as well.

Revenue in the three months ended in April fell to $924.9 million, yielding EPS of 16 cents, excluding some costs.

Analysts had been modeling $916 million and 15 cents, according to FactSet.

Gross margin fell quarter over quarter to 50.4% from 52.5% in Q4.

For the current quarter, the company forecast $990 million to $1.05 billion in revenue, better than the $976 million analysts’ have been modeling. Gross margin is expected to rise to 51.5%.

CEO Jen-Hsun Huang remarked that the company’s business in mobile phones and tablets, its “Tegra” processor line, was “on a growth track again,” and that its “Kepler” graphics processors were “accelerating our business.”

A further dissection of the results is available in the commentary produced by CFO Karen Burns.

Nvidia’s “consumer graphics” revenue was down almost 7%, quarter over quarter, as the company said demand for the Kepler processors outstripped supply, and that revenue in notebook computer graphic, while still a record, was contained by limits in the supply of chips with 28-nanometer features at Taiwan Semiconductor (NYSE: TSM), Nvidia’s manufacturing supplier.

So-called professional solutions revenue was down 4.2% from Q4′s level, which the company said was typical seasonality. Revenue from the consumer products business rose almost 21%, quarter to quarter, largely because of sales of Tegra, which appeared in new smartphonessuch as HTC‘s (2498TW) “OneX.”

Nvidia’s conference call is currently ongoing, having begun at 8 am this morning.

Update: During a phone call following the company’s conference call, Huang was kind enough to take a couple questions. Sounding upbeat and enthusiastic, Huang opened with the quip “got any 28-nanometer wafers?”

Despite the constraint on supply of those chips at TSM, Huang said the manufacturer is “knocking it out of the park,” in his view, shipping many more 28-nanometer parts than it shipped at the comparable period in the evolution of TSM’s 40-nanometer node.

For Tegra, Nvidia’s using TSM’s 40-nanometer node, specially tweaked in a form called “LPG.” That process is not supply constrained. Huang said he expects Nvidia will move to using a 28-nanometer process for Tegra later this year, when supply will likely be less constrained.

As for the year outlook, Nvidia did not provide an update on the call. You’ll recall that in September of last year, Huang told the Street the company could increase revenue to a range of $4.7 billion to $5 billion in 2013. In Q4, however, the company said it no longer stood by that view, owning in part to the massive disruption of the PC supply chain as a result of the damage to disk-drive production in Thailand.

I asked Huang when he would return to providing a year outlook. His first answer was “when it’s useful to do so.” His second answer was, “Well, we’re supply-constrained. I mean, go ask TSM!” Bottom line, no year forecast at this point.

I also asked Huang about the company’s plans for integrated baseband processors using the “long-term evolution,” or LTE, standard for phones and tablets. Huang mentioned on the call that Tegra will ship with integrated baseband capabilities next year.

When I asked Huang how he saw that LTE battle shaping up, and how the company will be competitive with basebands from, for example, Qualcomm (Nasdaq: QCOM), he remarked, “Nobody in the world has Tegra and so long as we think we can add value in building processors, and we have the imagination to do something really cool, out integrated processor will be the only Tegra with integrated baseband.”

Nvidia shares are now up 93 cents, or over 7%, at $13.34.

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LargeCap Stocks to Keep an Eye on Today

Northern, WI 8/12/2011 (PennyPayDay) – Chipmaker Nvidia swung to a profit, posting solid second-quarter numbers Thursday and delivering robust guidance.

Excluding items, Nvidia earned 32 cents a share in the June-ended period, compared to earnings of 8 cents a share in the prior year's quarter. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters were looking for earnings of 25 cents a share.

For the third quarter, Nvidia expects sales between $1.06 billion and $1.08 billion, above Wall Street's estimate of $1.05 billion.

Shares were surging 10.4% to $14.81 in premarket trading Friday.

AT&T hired Bank of America to advise it on asset sales as it seeks government approval of its planned acquisition of T-Mobile USA, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

AT&T shares were rising 0.2% to $28.50 and Bank of America shares were up 0.6% to $7.29.

Department store J.C. Penney posted second-quarter earnings of 7 cents a share, in line with estimates.

J.C. Penney shares were rising 4.3% to $26.83.

Department store Nordstrom reported second-quarter earnings of 80 cents a share vs. 66 cents a share last year. The Wall Street consensus target was for earnings of 74 cents a share.

The company projected earnings of $2.95 to $3.10 a share, up from $2.80 to $2.95 a share for the year. Analysts, on average, have been expecting earnings per share of $3.05.

Nordstrom shares were up 5% to $44.40.

Red Robin Gourmet Burgers reported an adjusted profit of $7.5 million, or 48 cents a share, for the three months ended June 30 with revenue up 7.2% year over year to $215.8 million. The average estimate of analysts polled by Thomson Reuters was for a profit of 36 cents a share in the June period on revenue of $213.3 million.

Red Robin shares were climbing 12% to $33.85.

Bank of New York Mellon was sued Thursday by Virginia and Florida over allegations the bank mishandled foreign exchange transactions for the states' pension funds.

Reinsurer Validus has sued Transatlantic to force Transatlantic into considering its takeover offer over a deal with Allied World Assurance.

Validus is arguing that Transatlantic is "arbitrarily" snubbing it despite the higher value of its offer over Allied's.

Wal-Mart is discussing the possibility of buying the Brazilian unit of French retailer Carrefour two years after a previous attempt at striking a deal failed due to a disagreement on pricing, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing sources familiar with the situation.

UBS is advising Wal-Mart on a potential offer, which could be between $6 billion and $8 billion, the Journal reported.

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Some LargeCap Stocks to Keep an Eye on Today

J.M. Smucker said fiscal third-quarter profit fell 3% to $132 million, or $1.11 a share, from $135.5 million, or $1.14 a share, a year earlier. Excluding restructuring and merger and integration costs, non-GAAP income per share was $1.27. Net sales rose 9% to $1.31 billion from $1.21 billion. The Wall Street consensus was calling for earnings of $1.26 a share on revenue of $1.25 billion. There were no premarket quotes for J.M. Smucker, the branded food products company. Shares settled at $63.95, up 1.7% on Wednesday.

Duke Energy reported that fourth-quarter income grew 23% to $427 million, or 32 cents a share, from $346 million, or 26 cents a share, a year earlier. On an adjusted basis, Duke, a power company, reported earnings of 21 cents a share. Operating revenue increased about 11% to $3.45 billion from $3.11 billion. Analysts, on average, expected earnings of 23 cents a share on revenue of $3.16 billion. There were no pemarket quotes for Duke. The stock fell 1.1% to $17.70 at the market close Wednesday.

Gold producer Barrick Gold said fourth-quarter adjusted net income rose 57% to $947 million, or 95 cents a share, from $604 million, or 61 cents a share, last year. Sales increased about 25% to $2.95 billion from $2.36 billion. Analysts, on average, had been targeting earnings of 84 cents a share on revenue of $2.74 billion. Shares of the company rose 1.6% to $50.50 during premarket trading Thursday.

Graphics chip maker Nvidia reported a strong quarterly profit performance and outlook, but the shares were dipping into the red. The stock fell 3.6% to $22.55 during premarket trading Thursday.

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OPTi (OTC:OPTI) Sues NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) and Wins $2M

OPTi Inc. (OTCBB:OPTI) shares were up today on heavy volume on no recent news and no e-mail campaign I am aware of so, I put in a call to the company and will update this release with current information when I hear back from them. In early trading, shares OPTi were up 15 percent at $2.62 per share on volume of 238,000 shares compared to its average daily volume of only 48,000 shares. The company has a market cap of $30 million and a 52-week range between $2.15 and $4.40 per share.

OPTi announced back in September that it entered into a patent licensing and arbitration settlement agreement with NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA). Under the terms of the agreement, not later than October 1, 2010, OPTi will receive one lump sum payment of $2,000,000 for granting NVIDIA a fully paid-up license to the Pre-Snoop patents under the terms of the license agreement that was the subject of a pending arbitration between the parties.

On December 3, 2009, the Company announced that it initiated arbitration against NVIDIA because OPTi believed that NVIDIA breached the terms of a license agreement between NVIDIA and OPTi, dated August 3, 2006. The parties had entered into the August 3, 2006 license agreement in settlement of patent infringement claims that OPTi had brought against NVIDIA. The August 3, 2006 license agreement provided that OPTi was to receive quarterly royalty payments of $750,000 commencing in February 2007 and continuing as long as NVIDIA continued to use OPTi's pre-snoop technology up to a maximum of 12 such payments.

OPTi filed an earlier arbitration against NVIDIA and was awarded five quarterly payments, totaling $3,750,000, for the period of February 1, 2007 to April 30, 2008. Because OPTi believed that NVIDIA had continued to use the pre-snoop technology, but had not made any of the required quarterly payments since the last arbitration ruling, OPTi initiated the December 2009 arbitration. The agreement announced today resolves all issues in the December 2009 arbitration and represents the final payment that will be received by OPTi from NVIDIA under the August 3, 2006 License Agreement.

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